Third of passwords contain personal information
Almost half (43 per cent) of the British public believe that their chosen passwords will never be guessed by a hacker, research by Redcentric has found.
A survey of 1,000 Brits found that 63 per cent use the same password across multiple accounts, while 21 per cent only change their passwords when prompted.
Furthermore, a third of people’s passwords contain personal information, such as names, addresses and birthdays.
Of the findings, a Redcentric spokesperson said: “Online security is paramount in this day and age, especially as people are able to carry out more day-to-day tasks online such as shopping, banking and running businesses.
“There are obvious concerns when people are using the same passwords over different accounts, especially if those accounts hold personal or financial information. We recommend that you change your password every month or so depending on the kind of account it is, rather than just doing it when prompted.”
Just under a fifth (17 per cent) of people also admitted to storing their passwords on their computer or mobile phone.
This research comes as the hackers of Sony Pictures released a file which shows that passwords for all the company’s social media and internal computer accounts were saved together in documents entitled ‘passwords’.