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“What’s the Password?”: The Surprising Results

Posted by Errin O'Connor on Feb, 10, 2021 11:02

“What’s the Password?”: The Surprising Results

Nowadays, it seems that to be able to function in our modern world it’s essential to have multiple passwords. From logging into social media or a bank account, your work computer or email, to buying products online, passwords are a major part of our daily lives.

But how are Americans creating their passwords? Are they secure? What are the similarities? To find out answers to these questions, we conducted a survey and then analyzed Americans’ password habits including creation, storage, and sharing. We’ve broken this information down into some of the most interesting findings in the graphics below.

Most Common Passwords

PASSWORD CREATION

We all know that the worst password you could possibly have is ‘password’, with that said, men seem to have a strong preference for this unsecure word, featuring it in their passwords more than women. Women on the other hand are more wordy with their passwords and like to include the names of their significant other.

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Defense! Defense! Defense! Western states are 2.2 times more likely to include a sports team name in their password compared with the North East.

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The most common personal tie that Americans use when creating a password is the name of a pet. The least common is their social security number. 33% don’t use any of the typical personal information when creating a new password.

PASSWORD SECURITY

Keep it secret, keep it safe. 36% of Americans are keeping it safe, literally, whereas 51% of Americans are putting their passwords at risk.

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Americans are becoming more safe in their password creation processes. While 68% have included some type of personal element in their past passwords, the number of people who include a personal element in one of their current passwords has dropped to 61%.

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11% of Americans have been using the same password for seven or more years whilst 37% of Americans only change their password when prompted to.

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PASSWORD SHARING

Sharing a password can be very risky, especially if you use the same variation of it for all your logins yet a lot of Americans admit to sharing their passwords. Those in the North East were the most likely to share passwords with 5 or more people.

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Password security is essential in order to protect your identity and safeguard yourself from risk. Make sure to not use personal information when creating a password, don’t share it unless necessary, don’t store it on your computer, and remember to change it often. Following these steps should help you keep your passwords safe and secure online, protecting your accounts from being hacked.

Errin O'Connor
About the Author

Errin O'Connor

With over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Management Consulting, Errin O’Connor has led hundreds of large-scale enterprise implementations from Business Intelligence, Power BI, Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, IT Security, Azure and Hybrid Cloud efforts for over 165 Fortune 500 companies.

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