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Symantec Discusses Password Use In The Security Community
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2010-03-30
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One of the problems of covering security-related surveys is that the participants often aren't representative of SecurityProNews readers; it's a good bet that you guys are a lot more cautious than the average individual. But readers of Symantec's Security Response blog were recently quizzed, and their approach to dealing with passwords seems worth repeating.
 | | Symantec Discusses Password Use In The Security Community |  |
It turns out that 45 percent of the readers who responded only have a few passwords that they use for different accounts. Which is a better approach than having just one password, of course, but significantly worse than having a lengthy list of unique ones. Also, 63 percent of respondents admitted to changing their passwords "not very often."
On the bright side, 72 percent of the respondents haven't used their birthday, their middle name, a pet's name, "password," or a variation of "123456." Furthermore, 59 percent of respondents rely on their memory rather than another means of tracking passwords, and 57 percent of respondents haven't given their passwords to their coworkers, friends, or spouses.
Hopefully this will give you a good idea of where you lie along the security continuum. And even if remembering numeric substitutions for Shakespeare passages isn't your cup of tea, being better than average is definitely something to aim for.
Symantec's Kevin Haley recommended achieving this by using odd characters, altered words and phrases, and lengthy terms.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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