Password fatigue

Password fatigue is the feeling experienced by many people who are required to remember an excessive number of passwords as part of their daily routine, such as to log in to a computer at work, undo a bicycle lock or conduct banking from an automated teller machine. The concept is also known as password chaos, or more broadly as identity chaos. The increasing prominence of information technology and the Internet in employment, finance, recreation and other aspects of people's lives, and the ensuing introduction of secure transaction technology, has led to people accumulating a proliferation of accounts and passwords. According to a survey conducted in February 2020 by password manager Nordpass, a typical user has 100 passwords. Some factors causing password fatigue are: unexpected demands that a user create a new password unexpected demands that a user create a new password that uses a particular pattern of letters, digits, and special characters demand that the user type the new password twice frequent and unexpected demands for the user to re-enter their password throughout the day as they surf to different parts of an intranet blind typing, both when responding to a password prompt and when setting a new password. Some companies are well organized in this respect and have implemented alternative authentication methods, or have adopted technologies so that a user's credentials are entered automatically. However, others may not focus on ease of use, or even worsen the situation, by constantly implementing new applications with their own authentication system. Single sign-on software (SSO) can help mitigate this problem by only requiring users to remember one password to an application that in turn will automatically give access to several other accounts, with or without the need for agent software on the user's computer. A potential disadvantage is that loss of a single password will prevent access to all services using the SSO system, and moreover theft or misuse of such a password presents a criminal or attacker with many targets.