Dashlane shares the new report on the assessment of global password health

A recent news report from Dashlane reveals that most of us are not protected as we need to be. This report was generated as a result of the assessment of password security all around the globe.

This report is claimed to be unique of its kind. It was carried out as a global analysis. For the assessment, Dashlane used an algorithm that measured the security of the passwords of various users. it generated a health score out of 100.

In accordance with the report, Eastern Europe scored the average highest with 76.4. the northern and western regions of the continent scored 74.3 and 73.4 respectively. Southern Europe was reported as the worst performer worldwide as it scored 71.4.  The next band of scoring was as follows:

• Central and South America
• East and South-East Asia
• Southern and Eastern Africa

The range of the score was between 72 and 73. Talking about the worst scorers, the list goes as:

• Middle East
• Central and Southern Asia
• Northern and Western Africa
• Oceania
• North America

As obvious from the listing, North America was the worst scorer. It was ranked last as it just had a score of 69.1. around 20% of passwords in the region of North America were reported to be compromised.  

As per Dashlane, a score range of 90 and above is considered good. All the scores below 90 indicate the requirement for improvement. Indicating that internationally the improvement to passwords is the need of the hour.

Two important factors were considered by Dashlane in assessing the health of passwords. These factors were”

1. The identified liabilities
2. Quality of important passwords [email, banking, social media]

The algorithm can work continuously in your system’s background and generate assessments. It focuses on four major areas. It checks for data breaches by monitoring the dark web, as well as leaked passwords. If you have a password that shows similarity with the compromised ones, your score will be deducted. Moreover, the frequency of reused and similar passwords across your accounts is also checked. The more similarity it identifies, the low score you get. Additionally, individual password strength is also measured. It is based on zxcvbn score. Zxcvbn score is used by most websites that tell the strength of the passwords newly created.

Furthermore, certain passwords were excluded from the scoring system. Since they could not be utilized for measuring overall health.