Users increasingly putting password security best practices into play

While there is awareness of password security best practices, there is still work to be done to put that awareness to full use, a Bitwarden survey reveals.

While Americans are more likely to report being affected by a data breach in the last 18 months (one-third versus one-fourth of global respondents), 1 in 3 are more interested in having a password that is easy to remember versus being secure.

Speaking of memory, a majority of Americans rely on it to keep track of passwords yet nearly one-third reset their passwords daily or multiple times per week because they’ve forgotten them.

Experts recommend long, complex, and unique passwords per site, but since this is impossible for any normal human, 9 out of 10 Americans still reuse passwords across multiple sites.

The good news about password security best practices

• 60% of Americans have an average password length of 9-15 characters (14 is considered a secure start point)
• 45% of Americans say they never share passwords in their personal life but this does fall behind the rest of the world where 54% say they don’t share passwords in their personal life
• 56% of Americans never share passwords at work, which is on par with the rest of the globe (57%)
• Americans are more likely (40%) to use a password manager than the rest of the globe (31%)
• While 66% of Americans are not required to use a password manager at work, 73% of Americans think their workplace should provide a password manager at work, which is higher than the rest of the globe (nearly 65%)
• 57% of Americans started using a password manager because they thought it seemed like a good way to protect their digital information

“It’s encouraging to see so many people reporting familiarity with password management best practices,” said Bitwarden CEO Michael Crandell. “While there are holdouts, it shows we need to do more education on the benefits and ease of use of password managers.”