Trapped in Password Purgatory?

Marketing Viewpoint by Ruth Winett

Trapped in Password Purgatory?
Tips for Password Users and
Companies Requiring Passwords

Avoid password purgatory by creating a manageable password review plan.

The average active digital user has 100 passwords say researchers at NordPass. Most of us have many more. With so many passwords, we use simple, all too obvious, passwords. NordPass found that “password” had nearly 5 million global users. Meanwhile “123456” was in second place and was used by 1.5 million users.

Additionally, many passwords consist of easily guessed common words and phrases, such as “iloveyou,” in 43rd place and “football” at number 73. “Batman” was also high on the list. Using easily guessed passwords enables cyber criminals. The solution, create a manageable password review plan, and secure your passwords.

Divide and Conquer To Manage Passwords

Collect your passwords in one place, and save them in the cloud or in a secure place.
Select and then carefully code your most important passwords (credit card, bank and investment accounts, passwords related to your job, and healthcare passwords).
Designate a regular time each month for password review. Then assign a few of the less critical passwords for review on each of these days. Spend minutes, not hours at a time, on password checks.
Eliminate obsolete passwords, and change any passwords that have an obvious pattern of characters, numbers, words, letters, and symbols.
Refer to this site for excellent tips on improving your passwords.

Organizations Should Make It Easier To Change Passwords

Users would more readily update passwords if the process were simpler. Here is Microsoft’s process: Retype a group of distorted characters. (Is the character an ‘s’ or a ‘5’?) Provide several recently used email addresses and subject lines, your birthday, and finally your credit card. Why? Is this information for their sales and marketing teams? Then, Microsoft may reject your request. As Microsoft does not provide tech support, you may not be able to change your password.

Users know that having secure, up-to-date passwords is essential. To encourage users to update their passwords periodically, companies should provide a secure, simple, and non-intrusive updating process. Tech support should be available for helping stymied users.

Now, if someone could help me remember my 100+ plus passwords!

Sources:

https://tech.co/password-managers/how-many-passwords-average-person

https://phoenixnap.com/blog/strong-great-password-ideas

Actionable Business Insights

For Email Marketing you can trust

articles index | home | back