Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Stupid Users

A recent survey carried out by Quest Software, has identified that some of the major players in the City of London have their security compromised by the stupidity of their staff.

The Quest Software survey looked at the best security practices in Square Mile, and found that whilst companies may have good security policies they were being undermined by user stupidity.

Over 25% of workers shared passwords between work PCs and their normal home PCs. This makes it easier for thieves to hack into "secure" systems.

Quest also found that some security policies at some financial institutional were inadequate. Some passwords were less than eight characters, making them easy to crack. Over 84% allowed users to chose their own passwords, 25% allowed real words rather than random characters.

This follows hot on the heels of reports that major banks are dumping customer details, such as names address and other personal information, in the street.

Given this lax attitude towards security, it is hardly surprising that the incidents of identity theft keep rising.

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