Workers are ready to ditch passwords

passwords
(Image Credit: Scyther5 / Shutterstock) (Image credit: Image Credit: Scyther5 / Shutterstock)

Workers across the world are ready to embrace new security measures and ditch passwords (and possibly password managers) for good, new research has claimed.

A report from Okta found that a majority of employees are prepared to embrace change due to the stress caused by needing to remember passwords for multiple devices.

Over two-thirds (70 percent) of the 4,000+ surveyed workers from the UK, France and the Netherlands said that they would back using biometric methods in the workplace, although 86 percent did say they had some worries about sharing such personal information with their employer.

Password stress

Okta's research also found that the need to drop passwords is being exacerbated by a majority of workers using unsafe or insecure methods such as re-using passwords across multiple accounts, or writing them down on paper - a proportion that rises to 86 percent of 18-34 year olds.

69 percent of UK workers saying they got stressed or annoyed as a result of forgetting a password, adding to existing debates about workplace stress.

“Today, businesses need to adopt technology that enables them to innovate quickly, while prioritising the security, privacy, and consent controls that help them to be trusted," said Todd McKinnon, CEO and co-founder of Okta. 

"Passwords have failed us as an authentication factor, and enterprises need to move beyond our reliance on this ineffective method."

Mike Moore
Deputy Editor, TechRadar Pro

Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.

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