The computing segment is prone to various security threats in the form of hacking. You should note that hackers are anxiously waiting to steal data and content from the servers. According to a recent study conducted by LastPass, nearly 42 percent of people favours easy-to-remember passwords than secured passwords. Moreover, more than 50 percent of people haven’t modified their passwords in the last 12 months even after the report of breaches and security vulnerabilities.
LastPass, which is a popular password manager app, conducted a survey among the 3250 respondents globally for the purpose of the study titled “Psychology of Passwords: The Online Behavior That’s Putting You at Risk”. The survey points out that hackers often randomly use easy-to-remember passwords with a hope that they can sneak through the data. The need for a strong password gains importance in this scenario. You should always make use of passwords with a combination of alphabets, numbers and symbols.
Commenting on the development, the company revealed that people are not protecting themselves from cybersecurity risks despite having enough knowledge about the various security threats. Even though people know that they should change the easy-to-remember passwords to stronger ones, they are not doing it. LastPass has termed the behavior of the people as Cognitive dissonance.
Usage of same passwords
As per the study, nearly 91 percent of users understands the inherent risk involved with using the same or a new password with a slight variation. While 25 percent of people have properly addressed the issue by performing the required action, nearly 66 percent of users continue to make use of the same password with minor variations.
The LastPass survey reveals that fact that nearly 80 percent of users expressed concern over their passwords being compromised. Moreover, 48 percent of people are of the opinion that they don’t change their passwords without necessity, which is an 8 percent increase when compared with 2018 figures. While 77 percent of users are aware of the best password-protection techniques, 54 percent of surveyed people memorize their passwords without writing anywhere.
You should not make use of the same password to access multiple properties. This is because if a hacker gains access to one of your accounts, they can also access other accounts without your knowledge. You should not use same passwords at home and work, which will endanger your organization’s security, reveals LastPass.
Regular reset of passwords
The LastPass survey also reveals interesting facts such as 71 percent of users have access to online accounts between one to 20 properties. Nearly, 42 percent of people are of the opinion that their online accounts aren’t worth a hacker’s time. The survey shows that 60 percent of people are afraid of forgetting their login credentials. Moreover, 52 percent of users want to know about their passwords. As many as 25 percent of users regularly reset their password once in every month, while 22 percent users often guess other’s password.
The LastPass survey report clearly advocates the importance of multi-factor authentication, which provides an extra layer of protection to 2FA. In the past, Microsoft had disclosed that over 99 percent of accounts that were compromised in January did not make use of Multi-factor authentication.
LastPass is a password manager app, which is used to store passwords. You need not have to remember the individual passwords but the master password is the one which you should not forget. A single master password will enable you to safeguard and fetch all remaining credentials stored inside the app.