Research reveals - over half of Europeans use same password everywhere

McAfee published results of the new research which pointed out that almost quarter of Europeans use weak passwords and that's why risk for identity theft and online frauds is high.

According to research almost 25 percent of Europeans use always same password for all accounts and almost 25 percent never changes it. This adds risk of password stealing/breaking and that's why risk of loosing all personal information to wrong hands is greater, too.

Research also reveals that people don't believe in experts advise to use longer and more complex passwords. Almost third uses
passwords that are 1-6 character long and almost quarter uses only letters in password.

59 percent of people who responded to research used always or in most cases same password everywhere. In addition to those 43 percent which never change their passwords, McAfee reveals that 16 percent changes password once a year and only 11 percent changes it three times a year as suggested.

It's not surprising that we have only one password because the amount of the services needing passwords has hugely increased within the last few years. That results in that more and more of us leaves "digital DNA trace" available for others, too.

41 percent of people who responded to research claimed that they use their personal information in online services at least once a day and 20 percent told that they use password 10-30 times a day.

Because we need a lot of passwords that means that many of us use only a few and easy passwords.

22 percent of users use simple passwords and password which contain only letters. Most popular passwords were pet names. After that most popular ones were hobbies and mothers maiden name. This is not surprising but it is alarming that social web services (eg. Facebook and MySpace) have that kind of information.

Top ten passwords:

1. Pet name
2. Hobby
3. Mothers maiden name
4. Family member birthday
5. Own birthday
6. Partner name
7. Own name
8. Favourite football team
9. Favourite color
10. First school

Source: McAfee