Poor password habits still an issue worldwide

To mark the start of this year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Dashlane has published its latest report into global password health which shows that although the share of reused passwords has dropped it remains worryingly high.

The share of password reuse remains between 40 and 50 percent across regions worldwide, putting individuals and companies at greater risk of account takeover.

Interestingly the report shows that small businesses have the greatest average number of credentials per user (122), followed by midsize businesses (76) and enterprises (53). This is because larger organizations tend to have more mature identity and security stacks, employing controls such as single-sign on (SSO), which reduces the amount of credentials at use by employees.

However, bigger doesn't mean better in terms of password health and hygiene, as midsize businesses have the lowest share of compromised passwords (1.9 percent), followed by enterprises (2.9 percent) and small businesses (3.4 percent). Enterprise businesses see the greatest share of password reuse (51.7 percent), compared to midsize businesses (43.9 percent) and small businesses (41.8 percent).

"Good password hygiene is an essential part of strengthening users against credential-based threats, and hardening enterprises from breach," says John Bennett, chief executive officer at Dashlane. "The continued improvements we see in password health are a big step in the right direction, but there is still a lot of room for education and encouraging users to update passwords as we simultaneously work to transition to a more secure, passwordless future."

It's not too surprising to find that online and tech-savvy industries, including software and technology, and information, media and telecommunications, are leading the pack when it comes to best cyber practices and high password health scores. In a close third place is education, an industry that has long been a target for hackers and ransomware, and has clearly taken steps to bolster its security and protect student and faculty data.

You can get the full report, which includes tips on improving password health, from the Dashlane site.

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