World Password Day: people want two-factor authentication

It's "World Password Day", not "Secure Password Day" or even "Change Your Password Day". To mark this day, which is always held on the first Thursday in May, Gmx and web.de, among others, have published a survey – and the results are almost surprising.

According to this survey, around 56 percent of respondents would like to have multi-factor authentication. This means that they want to secure themselves with a second device when they log in somewhere. For a long time, people have tended to be annoyed by this – It's just inconvenient. It is important to remember that what people say in a survey does not necessarily correspond to what they actually think. "Social desirability" is when you answer in a way that you think is socially desirable. However, most people seem to have understood that a second factor provides more security.

At least anyone who does online banking comes into contact with it. There, two-factor authentication (2FA) is now a legal requirement. As a result, 71 percent of those surveyed stated that they already use 2FA. In the survey, people say that this should be the case more often. Thirty percent of respondents would like a second factor for their email inbox. 28 percent would also find it useful for online shopping and 21 percent for cloud storage.

However, only 16% actually protect their online storage – with a second factor, according to their own statements. For social media accounts, the figure is 19%, with online stores leading the way at 35%.

According to the survey, the most common method for 2FA is an SMS tan (65%), followed by email codes and fingerprint or facial recognition.

Always the same passwords, but more passkeys

Not new and less surprising: passwords are still a problem for many. 57% of respondents admitted to using the same password for several services. If this falls into the wrong hands once, the other accounts with the same password are no longer protected.

Passkeys are used more frequently and are better known. 70 percent know them, 32 percent already use them actively. 61% say they would like to replace their existing passwords with them.

More than half of those surveyed are worried that their passwords could be stolen. 64% even assume that AI will make it much easier to crack passwords. How exactly this would work remains unclear.

The representative survey was conducted in April 2025; 1121 German internet users aged 18 and over were surveyed.

(emw)