Passwords in workplace are ‘inadequate’

According to the study by Wetherby-based Swivel Secure, almost a fifth of employees working for Yorkshire companies reuse the same username and password across every online business and personal application which, for the majority of today’s consumers, amounts to upwards of 25 different sites.

The survey of 1,200 UK employees, including 172 in Yorkshire, found that over half of the respondents from the region claimed to actively track online security threats such as viruses, trojans and hackers.

However, 80 per cent of respondents remained unconcerned about workplace security, while 68 per cent either write down or have another offline system for recording their passwords – which is generally not advised.

Chris Russell, vice-president of engineering at Swivel Secure, said: “The inconvenient truth is that workers are neither capable nor are they willing to maintain the complex, rolling system of passwords that today’s web environment demands.

“Analysts tell us that global spending on cyber security will exceed $68bn this year, but it is nonsensical for a business to invest heavily in firewalls, encryption and all manner of other protective technologies if its workers are effectively lowering the drawbridge to anyone that can guess their Facebook password.”