Women 4 times more likely than men to give passwords for chocolate

 
Survey shows horrible lack of data-security

A survey by Infosecurity Europe of 576 office workers has found that women far more likely to give away their passwords to total strangers than their male counterparts, with 45% of women versus 10% of men prepared to give away their password, to strangers masquerading as market researches with the lure of a chocolate bar as an incentive for filling in the survey. The survey was actually part of a social engineering exercise to raise awareness about information security. The survey was conducted outside Liverpool Street Station in the City of London.

This year’s survey results were significantly better than previous years. In 2007 64% of people were prepared to give away their passwords for a chocolate bar, this year it had dropped to just 21% so at last the message is getting through to be more infosecurity savvy. The researchers also asked the office workers for their dates of birth to validate that they had carried out the survey here the workers were very naive with 61% revealing their date of birth. Another slightly worrying fact discovered by researchers is that over half of people questioned use the same password for everythin.

Workers were also queried about their use of passwords at work, half said that they knew their colleagues passwords and when asked if they would give their passwords to someone who phoned and said they were from the IT department, 58% said they would. Researchers also asked workers if they thought other people in their company knew their CEO’s password. 35% thought that someone else did with Personal Assistants and IT staff being the most likely suspects.

Most people used only one (31%), two (31%) or three (16%) passwords at work, but a few poor souls had to use as many as 32! It was also found that 43% of people rarely or never change their password which is very poor security practice.

The survey was carried out as part of the run up to Information Security Awareness week which started on the 21st April. Infosecurity Europe is part of the weeks activities and is the event where those responsible for securing their organisations information can find all the latest technology, services and advice from over 300 of the top security companies from across the globe exhibiting.

Quelle:  Eskenzi PR