Internet users still using same password for all Web sites - Security - 0 views
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Jun Jie Tan on 21 Mar 09Internet users still using same password for all Web sites by Steve Ragan - Mar 11 2009, 17:10 Internet users still using the same password for all the sites they visit. (IMG:J.Anderson) Internet users still using the same password for all the sites they visit. (IMG:J.Anderson) Sophos is reporting that the results of one of their online surveys show that only 19 percent of those who took it are properly using passwords. Properly, meaning using separate passwords for most of the sites they need to log in to. However, the downside to these numbers is that they are based on a small sample -- quantify them and assume a few things, and they are downright scary. The survey offered by Sophos was taken by 676 people. Of those users who took the survey, 48 percent said they "use a few different passwords," while 33 percent said "Yes all the time", and 19 percent said "No never," when asked, "Do you use the same password for multiple websites?" So let's play with these numbers by nit-picking on the 33 percent who use the same password for everything. There are 303,824,646 people in the United States, based on a 2008 U.S. Census. Of that number, 72.5 percent of them are online, that's 220,141,969 Internet users (source: www.internetworldstats.com). If the Internet users in the U.S. took the Sophos survey with the same responses, yielding the same statistical breakdown, then 72,646,850 users are using the same password day in and day out on every site that requires one. That number is far more frightening than 223, which equates to the number people who make up the 33 percent in the Sophos survey. If you altered the hypothetical numbers even more, replacing the 33 percent with seven percent, then that means 15,409,940 Internet users surf the Web using the same password for everything, still a frightening and awful number. What if you take it down next to nothing, to one percent, a single percent of Internet users in the U.S., that number is still a frig