AdminSince most of us collect digital accounts all the time, password managers are a useful tool to help you keep track of every login and password you have.
In an exclusive poll of 1,000 people, TechRadar Pro we found that three-quarters of users have at least one password manager to store our credentials, but most don’t seem very confident in their ability to keep those credentials safe.
One-third of those surveyed used a combination of a dedicated manager and one integrated into the browser, while one-third used only one of them. Just over a tenth used two dedicated password managers, and a quarter used no manager at all.
Trust issues
When asked to rate trust in the security of password managers, the results were unimpressive. Six out of ten is the most common result, chosen by 144 people, closely followed by five and seven, chosen by 140 and 136 people respectively.
Perhaps these average numbers can be explained by recent hacking stories of famous password managers, or maybe people are concerned about the various privacy issues surrounding giants like Apple and Google that make it hard to resist using their own password managers if you happen to use any of their devices and/or browsers.
The results may also reflect people’s conflicting attitudes towards such companies. On the one hand, people might think that the tech giants have to keep our passwords secure – in addition to having the resources necessary to maintain a strong security posture, it would be disastrous PR for them if they had some major breach, given how much they are about to lose.
But on the other hand, there is a lot of distrust about how such corporations do business, and the privacy issues mentioned above are a real cause for concern for many.
However, when looking at the rest of the results, more people chose an eight-to-ten rating than a one-to-three score of 284 to 215. Also, 110 gave these utilities a perfect ten and 97 a one out of ten.
Dividing the results in the middle, slightly less than half of all respondents (43.6%) rated the reliability of password managers from one to five, and just over half (54.6%) from six to ten.
The results also contradict an earlier survey we conducted where the majority of respondents said they did not use a password manager. Another study we conducted also found that most people also don’t use password generators – which are integrated into virtually all password managers, but standalone versions also exist.
The combination of these two facts may explain why so many people have bad password habits. In fact, there have been various reports on the state of passwords around the world, and almost all of them come to the same conclusion – we need to do better with them.
However, this may be a contentious issue, given the growing importance of passwordless systems, which are supposed to be a new technology to secure our digital world. These include biometric systems – such as facial recognition and fingerprint scanners – access keys and single sign-on (SSO) technologies that are available in many identity management programs.
