A recent survey has analyzed how often people forget their passwords and how much time they spend resetting those passwords. And the truth is that the data from this survey has been really alarming, and makes you rethink some things. Among the 8000 surveyed by ExpressVPN, there are some people who spend almost 4 minutes resetting their credentials every time they forget it, and this is a lot if we take into account that some people reset their password more than 4 times a day…
Strong passwords vs easy to remember passwords
A multitude of applications, operating system logins, cloud services, etc., all need access passwords. For this reason, at present we can find that we have dozens of different passwords, since using a master password for everything is strongly discouraged for security reasons, since whoever gets that password will have access to everything. In addition, there is always the drawback that strong passwords are difficult to remember, while passwords that are not at all advisable (date of birth, name of your pet, 123456, password,...) are easy to remember.
If we add the fact of needing strong passwords, a mixture of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, with lengths of at least 12 characters or more (eg: aU76ytrPT@_1), with the fact that we have to remember not just one, but a multitude of passwords, it is not surprising that in the end we end up forgetting it if we do not have a password manager. This is the best way to have all your passwords centralized, secure and accessible at any time, so you never have to reset them.
How much time do people waste resetting passwords?
According to the survey conducted by ExpressVPN, the average time to reset a password is 3 minutes and 46 seconds. This is a lot if we consider that of those surveyed, there was a percentage between 2-4% who admitted that they had to reset their passwords more than four times a day. This can mean, taking into account the average time, that up to 3 and a half days (84 hours) per year would be lost resetting passwords. Valuable time that could be dedicated to other purposes (read a book, take a walk, dedicate that time to a loved one,...).
On the other hand, the survey has also yielded other interesting data, such as the services for which the password is forgotten the most times, and this is led by online banking. Almost 30% of password problems come from online banking websites or their client app. This exceeds social networks, which would remain with approximately 24%, followed by online shopping services at 16%, other apps or payment services at 9% and online video games at 8%. It is interesting to see that only 7% of those surveyed indicated that they forgot their password for their work accounts.
To all this we must add that it is not always easy for users to be able to reset a password. Up to 75% of those surveyed in the US had admitted that they had lost access to accounts after exceeding the limit of access attempts with an incorrect password. In these cases, you must wait additional time to try again or reset the password, which can lead to even more wasted time, and have a considerable impact on work productivity. This survey also reveals that many had to ask for help from acquaintances or contact customer service to solve their password problems.
And finally, the survey also makes it clear that the number one password creation method is the manual way. Few use random password generators to generate strong passwords, and far fewer have a password renewal policy from time to time.
How to avoid forgetting passwords?
Considering the large number of services that require a password today and the increasing complexity of passwords to be safe from cybercriminals, it is not easy to manage passwords securely. That is why technology also offers you help, and that is that password managers will save you all those problems once and for all. The advantages of using this type of system are:
- Encrypted database to securely store an unlimited number of passwords.
- Auto-fill functions to make it easier to enter passwords and access faster.
- Integrated password generator to generate strong and random passwords so that they are unique for each account.
- Access to passwords where you need them.