A third (33 per cent) of us admit to suffering from ‘password rage’ with many of us driven to crying, screaming and swearing. This is according to a snapshot poll taken by Centrify, a leader in unifying identity management, at Infosec Europe 2015 in London this week attended by IT security professionals.
The findings reveal that users are becoming increasingly frustrated with trying to remember different passwords to access online accounts with a quarter (25 per cent) saying they forget their password at least once a day – and 5 per cent admitting they forget all the time! Only 22 per cent of those who took part in the poll claim they never forget their passwords.
The rest of the office is also likely to suffer from our password frustrations, with one in six admitting they scream or shout in the office if they cannot remember their password, and one in seven moaning at work colleagues. People also admit to crying, running off and slamming the door, swearing and even banging their head on the desk. Despite all of this, just 2 per cent say they disappear off to the pub!
“We’ve all heard of road rage and air rage, but now there’s a new one on the block – password rage,” explains Barry Scott, CTO EMEA at Centrify. “As if we don’t have enough frustrations in our lives, passwords are an added irritant, but also an essential part of what we need in order to access online accounts and applications both at work and in our personal lives.
“Our frustrations are clear, but the real problems arise when we start to adopt poor password practices because we cannot remember them, like using the same ones again and again, or using easy-to-remember ones like ‘password’!”
In a survey conducted by Centrify last year among UK consumers, a quarter claimed they have more than 21 active online profiles, and nearly half (42 per cent) create at least one new online account profile every week – more than 50 a year. In fact, 14 per cent believe they will have 100+ passwords to deal with in the next five years.
Respondents in last year’s survey also revealed that forgetting a password is more annoying than misplacing their keys (39 per cent), a mobile phone battery dying (37 per cent) or getting spam email (31 per cent). Only a computer programme crashing, or a computer freezing while sending emails were more annoying.
Links
www.centrify.com
