Investigating Password Reuse for Security at Winona State Computer Science

Password security has been improving over the past few decades, but people\u27s knowledge and practice have not. Passwords are being used more and more every day for a variety of things, which may make the user feel more protected, but that isn\u27t always true. 65% of individuals reuse their passwords for multiple accounts according to a study Google did in 2020. Reusing passwords can be extremely dangerous and doing so could cause someone\u27s accounts to be hacked and loose sensitive data. Twofactor authentication (2FA) is where the user needs two or more pieces of authentication before being allowed to login. This is a popular concept in addition to passwords that a majority of people use occasionally or whenever it is available. Password reuse can be difficult to calculate due to each individual having a different number of accounts. Winona State Computer Science staff and students took a survey to determine the security of password reuse within a technology-based background. 48% of the participants had 50 or more accounts that required a password and 35% of them only use 1 to 5 passwords total