Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday May 26 2020, @04:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the convenience-vs-security dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Even seeing data breaches in the news, more than half of consumers are still reusing passwords.

More than half of people haven't changed their password in the last year – even after they've heard about a data breach in the news.

That’s according to a recent survey, “Psychology of Passwords: The Online Behavior That’s Putting You At Risk,” that examined the online security and password behaviors of 3,250 global respondents – and found that people still employ an alarming number of very common and very risky habits, even though they know better.

Researchers said that password reuse was the biggest security faux pas being committed by respondents. In fact, password reuse has actually gotten worse over the years: When asked how frequently they use the same password or a variation, 66 percent answered “always” or “mostly” – which is up 8 percent from the same survey in 2018.

Worse, 91 percent of respondents said they know using the same (or a variation of the same) password is a risk. They still do so anyways.

“Our survey shows that most people believe they are knowledgeable about the risks of poor password security; however, they are not using that knowledge to protect themselves from cyber threats,” said researchers with LastPass by LogMeIn, in a recent report.

[...] “People seem to be numb to the threats that weak passwords pose,” said researchers. “Technology like biometrics is making it easier for them to avoid text passwords all together and many people are simply comfortable using the ‘forgot password’ link whenever they get locked out of their accounts.”


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2020, @02:36PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2020, @02:36PM (#999219)

    I'm not on the run from the law.
    The threat to me is hackers or forgetting my own passwords.
    Besides, gmail will cough up my data when served with a warrant anyway.

  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:25AM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:25AM (#999451) Homepage Journal

    Forgetting or losing a passphrase is a real security risk.
    For me, far more serious than someone looking at the contents of my computer after stealing it.
    So I deliberately went to some trouble to *not* encrypt my hard drive.
    (I was unable to install Purism's OS without encrypting the entire hard drive. So I used a different Linux system)

    -- hendrik