What kind of passwords do people use

With the increasing importance of online life, each of us faces the need to use more and more web services: social networks, e-mail, online banking and so on. Each service requires a username and password, with most services today enforcing strong password standards that require us to memorize multiple alphanumeric combinations. Based on the limited abilities of the average human’s memory, using the same password for different services can be quite tempting. Of course, it’s also quite insecure, but the alternatives are either complex or not easily recognizable. So we’ve asked our Facebook friends, how many passwords they actually use in their lives. Not surprisingly, about 20% of respondents admitted that they use the same password for all online accounts. Of course, this differs from country to country, with Russians being the most security-savvy (12% of users have only one password) and Mexicans the most unconcerned (26% of users with a single password).

The main issue with one (maybe strong) password is if you somehow lose it, cybercriminals can steal everything from your online life almost instantly. The alternatives are memory training (strong unique passwords for each account) or usage of special software to keep all passwords in a special encrypted database.