Cornwall, ON – May 5, 2026 — Zoho Corporation, a global technology company, today released the State of Workforce Password Security 2026, a global research study of 3,322 verified respondents across nine regions, six industries, and twelve roles. Conducted by Tigon Advisory Corp. on behalf of Zoho Vault, Zoho’s password management platform, the report documents a widening disconnect between how organizations assess credential risk and how they have invested to address it. Findings from 174 Canadian respondents indicate that Canada’s relative position is better than the global average, but it is still vulnerable.
The report, released ahead of World Password Day, arrives at what the authors describe as a critical inflection point. Across the global sample, one-in-three businesses reported a confirmed cyberattack in the past year, and a further 7% were unable to confirm whether they had been attacked at all. In Canada, the attack rate dipped to 30%, three points below the global average, and four points below the U.S.
“World Password Day was created to remind people that credentials are still the entry point to the modern business. What this research shows is that the entry points have multiplied with the average Canadian employee now logging into more than fifteen business applications, and most organizations cannot fully account for who has access to what across them,” says Chandrashekar LSP, Managing Director at Zoho Canada. “Numerous entry points combined with unmanaged third-party access is leaving Canadian organizations vulnerable.”
The State of Security in Canada
There is a consistent theme across the Canadian data: cautious maturity based on better-than-average spending intent, awareness and deployment metrics.
Among Canadian respondents:
- 30% experienced a confirmed cyberattack in the past year, compared with 32% globally.
- 73% lack complete identity visibility across their workforce, including orphaned accounts and undocumented access, one point below the global average.
- 71% plan to increase security spending in 2026: one point below the global average.
- 60% of employees use 15 or more business applications, one point above the global average.
- 63% have not deployed a Zero Trust strategy, with most non-adopters expecting to implement within one to three years.
The AI Belief-to-Deployment Gap
The starkest finding for Canada concerns artificial intelligence in workforce security. 89% of respondents believe AI will strengthen their security posture — one point below the global average — yet only 46% report being ready to deploy AI-powered security today.
The report identifies legacy infrastructure (cited by 52% of global respondents) and migration complexity (48%) as the primary blockers. Cost ranks third at 41%, reinforcing a recurring theme across the data: the constraint on security maturity is not budget but architecture.
“The organizations that will navigate the next five years most effectively are those investing in architectural simplicity, building governance models that scale with identity growth, and adopting AI-enabled orchestration to reduce friction,”, says Helen Yu, Founder and CEO of Tigon Advisory Corp. “Budget is not the primary constraint on security maturity; architecture, talent, and visibility infrastructure are. The data in this report is a call to sequence correctly: fix foundations before chasing advanced capabilities.”
The Third-Party Problem
The report highlights that third-party access is a distinctly Canadian risk. The majority of organizations (73%) cannot fully account for who can access their systems. Canada’s heavily integrated North American supply chain creates identity visibility gaps and reveals that Canada and the US are more alike than different: which matters for organizations operating across both countries.
Additionally, Canada and the U.S. share the same top two threats (phishing at 67%/71%, weak passwords at 61%/63%), nearly Identical Zero Trust gaps (63%/62%), and similar Identity visibility failures (73%/76%). The two markets are more alike than different – which matters for organizations operating across both, and for vendors whose North American strategy treats them as distinct.
What the Data Recommends
The report concludes with six imperatives for 2026, prioritized by deployment urgency:
- Deploy a centralized password manager
- Close the identity visibility gap
- Pair password management with multi-factor authentication
- Build a Zero Trust roadmap
- Treat integration as a security requirement
- Pilot AI-powered credential security within the next twelve months.
“Legacy infrastructure remains the primary blocker between any effective use of AI, including deploying AI for security,” says Mani Vembu, CEO of Zoho. “Our future-ready stack is built around the premise that placing identity, access, and applications on the same architectural foundation provides fewer opportunities for vulnerabilities, higher identity visibility, and conveniently, an easier method of adding AI to assist in threat detection. As AI’s sophistication in exploiting security weaknesses rapidly improves, migrating to a secure, AI-ready platform is only becoming more urgent.”
Methodology
The State of Workforce Password Security 2026 was conducted by Tigon Advisory Corp. and sponsored by Zoho Corporation. The study is based on 3,322 verified responses across nine regions (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, India, Middle East and Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and China), six industries, and twelve workforce roles. Data was collected in early 2026. View the full report, including all regional snapshots and methodology notes.
Zoho Privacy Pledge
Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. The company owns and operates its data centers, ensuring complete oversight of customer data, privacy, and security. More than 150 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. For more information, click here.
About Zoho Vault
Zoho Vault is Zoho’s password management application for individuals, teams, and enterprises, providing centralized credential vaulting, secure sharing, role-based access, multi-factor authentication, and integration with Zoho’s broader productivity, HR, and IT-management portfolio. Zoho Vault is included in Zoho One and is also available as a standalone subscription.
About Zoho Corporation
With 55+ apps in nearly every major business category, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific technology companies. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with international headquarters in Chennai, India, Zoho is privately held and profitable with 90+ offices worldwide.
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Last Updated on May 5, 2026 by Melody McKinnon, Online Business & Marketing Manager
