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Women More Likely Than Men to Give Away Passwords (for Chocolate!)

by Evan Shamoon on April 17, 2008 at 08:43 AM



A recent survey by Infosecurity Europe of 576 office workers found, among other things, that women far more likely to give away their passwords to total strangers than man. Specifically, 45% of the fairer sex (versus 10% of the unfairer sex) were prepared to give away their password: The offers came from 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, outside Liverpool Street Station in London, England. In similar news, the research firm Accenture found 88 percent of people surveyed use the same password for different places, which increases the likelihood of identity theft.

As unbelievable as the stats are, this year's survey results were actually significantly better than those of previous years. In 2007 64% of people were prepared to give away their passwords for a chocolate bar. Research also discovered that over half of people questioned use the same password for all of their online accounts.

"Our researchers also asked for workers names and telephone numbers so that they could be entered into a draw to go to Paris, with this incentive 60% of men and 62% of women gave us their contact information", said Claire Sellick of Infosecurity Europe.

As she revealed her details to our researchers one woman said, "even though I have just been to Paris for the weekend I would love to go again."

Lesson: sometimes it's good to be paranoid (about strangers offering you chocolate). [Sources: Infosecurity Europe and AOL Money & Finance/AP]


Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, security, surveys

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