Dashlane, a startup that launched password-management software, has recently released its Password Security Roundup, which analyses password security policies of more than 80 of the world wide web’s most popular websites. The report showed that the company that has the best rank was Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the company getting the highest score the second time in a row. However, another website that most of us widely use, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), has received one of the lowest scores, landing on the 74th position.
But what did allow Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to earn such a high score among other websites? Before we look into that, we should mention that the report was focused only on the online presence, and hence, took into account only Apple’s e-commerce services. The company received its +100 score based on several criteria. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s website has a required minimum lenght of eight characters for passwords, and a mandatory condition for the password to be alphanumeric. Moreover, users can see the strength of their passwords and their accounts are locked if the password is introduced incorrectly 10 times.
In comparison, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) got a score of only -45, sharing the 74th spot on Dashlane’s list with several other websites. Amazon users are required to have at least six characters while picking a password for their account. At the same time, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s website lacks a password strength meter and does not ask for an alphanumeric password. An interesting and funny thing noticed by the guys at Dashlane is that almost half of the websites they analyzed, including Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) , allow their users to introduce the word “password” for their password.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s leader position is trailed by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Windows Store, which earned a score of +75. Among the websites with lowest scores, Amazon is sharing its place with Groupon, which also scored -45.0. Among social websites, the strongest password security policy has Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s Yahoo Mail, which with a score of +65 got on the seventh position in the overall ranking. The popular social network Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) comes much lower, getting a score of only +10, which placed it on the 31st spot.
CNBC.com‘s tech reporter Cadie Thompson also provided her opinion on the report, stating among other things, that amid eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s recent security breach caused by a cyberatack, experts advise that users should change their passwords more often and be more careful while picking a password for their accounts. In Dashlane’s ranking, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) did actually relatively well, gaining a score of +30, and went on the 19th place.
Cadie Thompson’s full video is available below:
The full infographic compiled by Dashlane can be seen below:
