HYPR's 2-Year Password Usage Study Examines Human Behavior

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35% Of People Keep All Their Passwords in Notebooks, Excel Files, Sticky Notes, etc.

2+ Year Study Examines Human Behavior, Providing Insight to How Personal and Work Related Passwords are Utilized

NEW YORK, December 10, 2019 — Passwords are the dominant way online services manage access to our personal and work-related lives. But often times, they’re more of a headache than a security tool. Today, HYPR, the leading provider of True Passwordless Security, released the findings of a two and a half year Password Usage Study, which compiled data from over 500 full-time workers across the United States and Canada to better understand how individuals use, treat and manage their passwords.

The study was developed by Yan Grinshtein, Head of User Experience at HYPR, who oversees the personal journeys users have for the company’s enterprise-facing solutions. It was split between two parts. The first part, purely workforce-related, helped understand how people use and manage passwords at their workplaces, while the second part was aimed to understand how people use and manage passwords in their personal life such as shopping, financial services, social, and more.

According to the findings, 72% of individuals reuse passwords in their personal life while nearly half (49%) of employees simply change or add a digit or character to their password when updating their company password every 90 days. Additional key findings include:

A majority of users recently require a password reset due to forgetting their password

• 78% of respondents required a password reset in their personal life within the last 90 days
• 57% of respondents required a password reset in their work life within the last 90 days

A sizeable amount of users manage an overwhelming number of passwords

• 37% of respondents have over 20 passwords in their personal life
• 19% of respondents have over 10 passwords in their work life

A majority of users depend on physical and digital lists to manage their passwords

• 65% of respondents use an app or keep a digital or physical list of passwords in their personal life 
• 58% of respondents use an app or keep a digital or physical list of passwords in their work life 

“As a society, we’re so accustomed to using passwords and shared secrets that we tend to overlook just how important user experience is,” said George Avetisov, CEO and Co-founder of HYPR. “As the world evolves beyond passwords, we believe that true passwordless security delivered through the enterprise will rapidly eliminate the need for users to reuse, manage, reset or even think about passwords.”

As a result of the findings, HYPR uncovered three conclusions:

• People do not rely on technology that’s created to help them manage their passwords. This is due to a lack of knowledge of their existence, uncertainty of how to use them, and not trusting a third party to keep their passwords secure and not share them.
• The majority of individuals rely on their own memory that time and time again proves to fail, with constant password resets happening every time a user cannot recall a password to a service they are trying to access at any given moment.
• People still rely on traditional means of keeping important information out of memory but yet still accessible. This previously meant simple pieces of paper or notes, but have since transitioned with the digital revolution to Word docs, emails, spreadsheets, and so on.

About HYPR

HYPR is the leading provider of True Passwordless Security. Backed by Comcast, Mastercard, and Samsung, HYPR is the first authentication platform designed to eliminate passwords and shared secrets across the enterprise. With HYPR, businesses are finally able to deploy Desktop MFA and Strong Customer Authentication to millions of users worldwide. 

Contact

Christine Castro
Sr. Director of Marketing
HYPR | The Passwordless Company™
(m) 978-852-7484
christine.castro@HYPR.com