Only 9.2% indians create safe passwords online, says research

A recent research by Avast suggests that Indians are amongst the least secure population online. According to the paper, a majority of 93.2% online consumers in India claim that they create strong passwords but in reality only 9.2% of the Indian popluation actually does so. The Avast research also reveals that majority of websites that Indians visit do not challenge users to create safer passwords. The report goes on to say that "Unprotected smartphones and unlocked banking apps plus weak password requirements from American websites contribute to lost privacy." The research findings also state that 36.5% of Indians do not lock their smartphones, even though 83.9% claim they have personal and private information on their devices. "Specifically, 68.6% of Indians say they’d rather have their nude photos leaked than their personal banking information, yet many more lock their photos apps than their banking apps," says the research.

“While Indians are rightfully concerned about privacy, there is a disconnect between that concern and the steps they take to protect themselves,” said Vince Steckler, chief executive officer of Avast. “Users have a multitude of devices and passwords to keep track of, which can be overwhelming. When users feel overwhelmed, they tend to default to unsafe practices that put their privacy at risk.” The survey goes on to find that the average length of passwords made by Indian users is only eight characters, while security experts recommend a password that is atleast 16 characters long. The survey also found that from the Top 15 websites visited by Indians, (we all know what we surf daily!) none require users to create passwords with a combination of upper & lower case or numbers & special characters.

These findings are proof of the fact that cyber security is still an alien concept for majority of Indians. Securing a digital future is far more important that the dream of a Digital India. It is vital to create and store passwords in a safe and secure manner. Password management is not so tough and there are a lot of password protection apps that are available in the ecosystem. Take for instance- Last Pass. It's an app that stores all your passwords in a vault and users just need to remember the password for unlocking the app. This frees the users from the hassle of remembering each and every password. Other such password managers are also available on iOS, Android & windows.