Alexandra Borgeaud
Research expert covering cybersecurity and tech in Latin America
Password security in the United States - statistics & facts
Although passwords, in the sense of code-phrasing, have existed for centuries, going all the way back to the Mesopotamian civilization, it is in the United States that passwords were first introduced in the computing environment in the early 1960s by Fernando Corbato, while working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This led to the idea of encrypting passwords, developed in the 70s by another American, Robert Morris. His method, named hashing, was based on translating passwords into numbers using one-way encryption. Nowadays, passwords are ubiquitous, constituting the most used security method by companies worldwide in 2023.
Juggling every day with an ever-increasing number of passwords
From the famous Open Sesame key word in the Arabian Nights folk tales, to the military countersigns flash, thunder, and welcome used by Allied forces on D-Day during World War II, people have always felt the need for encrypted communication forms to keep certain matters secret. When it comes to their personal information online, identity theft, data breach, and financial loss counted among Americans’ top concerns in 2023. Nevertheless, living in a highly digitalized world makes it increasingly difficult to keep track of an ever-growing number of online accounts. In 2023, the main reasons Americans turned to password managers are the desperate need for measures to secure password authentication and the difficulty of remembering all their passwords. In order to maintain a secure password authentication method, consumers must embrace additional security controls which will create, encrypt, and store unique and complex passwords for every account.Is the future passwordless?
While passwords remain widely implemented worldwide, passwordless methods, which allow users to access applications or IT systems without typing in a password or answering security questions, have increased in popularity over recent years. In the United States, nearly 60 percent of respondents expected to replace passwords with biometrics such as facial recognition or fingerprint scans in 2023. Passwordless authentication is typically used alongside multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) solutions to improve user experience, increase cybersecurity, and simplify IT operations. While passwordless adoption is expected to continue to grow, some key security risks and vulnerabilities will endure and will require innovative solutions to ensure individuals’ and companies’ data security worldwide.
