Survey on Password Quality and Confidentiality

Abstract

In this paper are presented results of empirical survey on password quality self-assessment and several privacy issues regarding password manipulation among information systems' users. Data was collected by questioning 627 e-mail users that were adults, Croatian national and were using e-mail system on regular basis. Comparisons among different kind of users were done regarding age, gender, technical background knowledge, university degree and experience in usage. Results of statistical analysis have shown that most of the users' passwords are of average quality while 13,8% of all users graded their password as poor. Regarding password manipulation 53,4% of all users said they use the same passwords for most of the information systems they use. In total 20,7% of all users sometimes lend their password and 17,1% of them wrote it down for remembering. Results of this study highlighted importance of using security procedures and guidelines and need of the continuous education on security issues with constant informing and alerting of information systems' users. This study is an example on how to evaluate different users' security awareness in order to adjust courses on security issues and to adapt informing and alerting to different groups of information systems' users. However, there is great need for validated universal questionnaire for this kind of surveys.