Password fatigue is putting more than half of UK residents’ private data at risk, according to new research from TeleSign.
The mobile identity company surveyed more than 2,000 consumers, finding that 62% risked online account compromise due to using the same passwords.
The duplication of passwords over multiple online accounts could leave people open to the ‘domino effect’, where a hacker steals a user’s password for one service and is then able to access numerous other accounts.
"At TeleSign, we’ve seen the impact of the domino effect first hand. Following the recent hack of an online retailer’s customer database, our security team saw a massive increase in fraudulent activity with email providers."
"This spike in activity was the direct result of hackers taking advantage of the passwords they had stolen from one service to access another," said Steve Jillings, CEO of TeleSign.
It is common to see sites enforce password requirements – urging the use of upper and lower case, symbols and numbers. This only serves to intensify the issue, as people struggle to remember unique passwords for every account they have.
The survey highlighted the main reasons as to why people do not change their passwords, this ranged from the likelihood users would forget a new password (22%), that people know it is important but it gets overlooked (22%), they can’t be bothered (20%) or that they are asked to change their passwords too often (16%).
"Passwords are an artefact from a bygone era," Jillings continued. "If you want to keep something secure and private, a password alone is just not the right tool. A significant percent of these types of incidents can be prevented when providing stronger authentication methods."
"We believe leveraging a user’s mobile identity to confirm who they are – some combination of their phone number, their device, and their behaviour – is nearly impossible to hack compared to a password."
