78% of Users Forget Their Passwords After 90 Days

According to a two-year study conducted by HYPR, most users struggle to remember their passwords over time. The research surveyed about 500 full-time employees from companies in the United States and Canada to understand how people use and manage their login credentials.

Key Findings

• 72% of users reuse passwords in their personal lives.
• 49% of employees simply change or add a number or symbol to their corporate password when required to update it every 90 days.
• 78% of respondents had to reset their personal passwords in the past 90 days because they forgot them.
• 57% of employees had to reset their corporate passwords for the same reason.

Password Storage Habits

The study found that 65% of respondents use apps, digital lists, or physical lists to store their personal passwords. In the workplace, 58% of employees rely on similar methods for managing their corporate passwords.

Why Users Struggle with Passwords

Researchers noted that most people do not use technologies designed to help manage passwords. Instead, they rely on their memory, which often fails them and leads to frequent password resets.