World Password Day: 5 interesting facts about passwords

It's World Password Day: that time of the year when we talk about password hygiene and the importance of safe password management. World Password Day is observed on the first Thursday of every May, and this year, we'd like to talk about some of the most interesting facts about passwords and their impact on the online world.

The psychology behind forgetting passwords

It's common knowledge that we're bad at remembering multiple passwords and according to a recent study on forgetting passwords by Rutgers University-New Brunswick, much of the blame should be placed on the applications themselves. They report that websites focus more on telling users if their passwords are strong or weak but do nothing to help people remember them. They also mention that users more often remember passwords for accounts they frequently log in to.

Passwords are responsible for 80% of data breaches

As businesses continue to rely on new software tools to overcome competition and make remote work easier, employees are forced to manage passwords for multiple accounts. A recent survey from Zoho Vault showed that about 1 in 3 people stated that they used between 25 and 100 apps each week to perform personal and business tasks. This often leads to password fatigue and causes users to set passwords that are weak or easy to remember, which reportedly causes over 80% of data breaches in the hacking category.

The hidden costs of using passwords

A recent report from technology research firm Forrester states that some organizations could spend up to $1 million USD per year on staffing and infrastructure to merely handle password resets. This is reportedly due to the volume of password-related requests reported to the help desks—which Gartner estimates to be around 40%—that take up quality billable hours of help desk agents and the hours spent by users without access to business-critical applications, among other factors.

Loss of revenue for e-commerce giants

A 2017 study conducted by MasterCard and the University of Oxford found that about one in three online purchases were abandoned at checkout when customers forget their login credentials. Experts suggest that this could lead to multi-million dollar losses, if not more. The study also mentions that about 18.75% of users abandon their purchase while waiting for a link to reset their forgotten password.

Password sharing is becoming a habit

About 81% of young people aged between 13 and 24 have either shared passwords for streaming services with friends or have accessed services using passwords shared with them. Password sharing is also common amongst partners. A 2018 study by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University identified that over 86% of couples shared at least one password with their partner, with a median of four accounts shared on average.

Fortunes locked up in the password jail

In mainstream media as well as on finance blogs and internet forums, cryptocurrencies are currently the talk of the town. From revolutionizing trading to making new millionaires, the crypto world has it all—including multiple stories of regrets. According to a research made by the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis, around 20% of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin (a percentage worth well over $140 billion USD) appears to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets. One such Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has only two tries left to unlock his cryptowallet containing 7002 bitcoins before his hard drive gets encrypted, permanently locking him out of a fortune currently worth over $400 million USD.

The takeaway: Use a password manager

Passwords are often overlooked when it comes to cybersecurity, but password management is the key to online safety and history has proven that we're never good at it on our own. It might be time to adopt a password manager if you don't already use one. Password managers are secure online vaults that safeguard all your passwords in one place while allowing you to access them using a single master password. Password managers like Zoho Vault sync across devices, autofill passwords on all your favorite applications, and also make password sharing safe with real-time monitoring.