The Cost of Password Purgatory

Marketing Viewpoint by Ruth Winett

Four Tips To Simplify Password Resets

Companies and individuals must protect their data from loss or intrusion using passwords, firewalls, and now AI. The average person now “juggles” 168 passwords for personal purposes and 87 for business purposes, according to Nordpass, up 70% in three years. But, passwords are hard to create, apply, remember, and reset when breached. This affects our productivity and has costs both mental and financial. What does password purgatory cost us?

“Password Fatigue”: A survey of 1,047 participants, including 600+ fulltime employees found that 39% had password fatigue accompanied by anxiety, reports Beyond Identity.
Time Sink: Workers are so overwhelmed with managing passwords that it impacts “their productivity and mental energy,” says Beyond Identity.
Loss of Worker Productivity Has a Cost: Workers spend “30% of their time resetting passwords,” says AGIO. This loss of productivity costs $480.26 per employee annually, reports Statista.
Help Desk Costs: Approximately 20-50% of all help desk calls concern password resets. Gartner estimates this costs $70 per reset. [If each help desk rep makes two password assists a week, the annual cost is $7,000 per rep.]

One reason for resetting passwords is to recover from data breaches. Globally, data breaches can cost a corporation $4.44 million a year, but in the US the average cost in 2025 was $10.22 million. Data breaches interrupt operations and can take 241 days to identify and resolve, IBM reports.= However, the toll on self-employed people or citizens using digital devices at home is not included in these studies. Friends say they are overwhelmed with creating and managing hundreds of passwords. If they are hacked, it has a cascading effect, requiring the resetting of multiple passwords, which limits access to services requiring passwords. Furthermore, the resetting process is a nightmare.

Tips To Simplify Password Resets

Companies should do more to prevent data breaches. In addition, companies should make it easier to remember and reset passwords:

Require the use of passwords only when company or customer security is at risk.
Tell users whether their access problems are caused by their usernames or their passwords.
Display usernames and passwords when entered so users can self-correct.
Clearly state requirements for new passwords but not requiring or allowing up to 20 characters per password, which increases the likelihood of making mistakes.

To some, a password manager is the answer. Transferring your passwords to such a service is time consuming, but worse, you have then created a single point of failure. Hacking of LastPass in 2022 led to theft of cryptocurrency with the consequences lasting for the next three years. I am looking forward to a time when we are password free.

Sources:

Juggling Security: How many passwords does the average person have in 2024?

https://nordpass.com/blog/how-many-passwords-does-average-person-have/

Passwords are Costing Your Organization Money - How to Minimize Those Costs

How password fatigue can cost organizations time, money and mental energy

Measuring Password Fatigue: Usability and Cybersecurity Impacts

Employees are Wasting 30% of Their Time Resetting Passwords

Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Report-IBM

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