Passwords For a £5 Gift Voucher

So it turns out you don’t need any fancy password cracking software like John the Ripper or Cain and Abel you just need a handful of £5 gift vouchers for Marks and Spencers!

But we had discussed this in part before, some people will give out their passwords if you just ask, some if you offer chocolate and this time in the guise of a ’survey’ for a gift voucher.

Although the majority (60 percent) of 207 London residents were happy to hand over computer password data which might be useful to potential ID thieves in exchange for a £5 M&S gift voucher, the public at large take a hard line on firms who fail to keep tight hold of customer data.

In exchange for the voucher, a number of those quizzed during a street survey in Covent Garden earlier this week went on to explain how they remember their password and which online websites (from a range of email, shopping, banking and social networking sites) they most frequently use. A sizeable chunk of those surveyed (45 per cent) said they used either their birthday, their mother’s maiden name or a pet’s name as a password.

Perhaps it’s just as well that stolen identities are worth a lot less than £5, fetching as little as 50p on the underground black market, according to Symantec.

It seems like rather than giving out the actual password they answered questions put together in such a way that a profiler could easily work out what their password was and which sites they used it on.

Pretty sneaky methinks, it’s a good way to test how paranoid people are about their data security…it’s ironic really seeing how much they complain but at the end of it they are their own worst danger.

ine in ten (89 per cent) of 1,000 Brits quizzed during a wider survey, commissioned by Symantec and price comparison site moneysupermarket.com, expressed the opinion that “reckless and repeated” data breaches ought to be punished by criminal prosecutions. Sanctions should include the ability to incarcerate directors of negligent firms in jail. Eight out of ten of those quizzed agreed there should be a “one strike and you’re out” rule for data loss.

Almost four in five of those polled reckon their personal data is not secure in the hands of companies that hold it, a finding that probably stems from the steady drip of data breach stories that have followed from the massive HMRC child benefit lost disc bungle last year. Three in four consumers are concerned about the amount of information organisation hold on them, regardless of whether or not this information is held online or offline. Online payments were perceived as the single greatest risk for losing data.

The general public are pretty harsh too when it comes to dishing out punishment, but then again that is human nature and that is why there’s jury service.

It’s not surprising either that people have very little faith in data stored by the government and their greatest fear is carrying out online transactions.

I think we all know well enough to keep ourselves safe…but sadly as always it seems the rest of the world don’t.

[Source: Darknet ]