Free chocolate provides password bounty

The Infosecurity Europe survey found that women are four times more likely than men to exchange account details for chocolate.

Ofthe 576 office workers surveyed, 45 per cent of women and 10 per centof men agreed to turn over passwords to researchers supposedlyconducting a market survey.

When the reward was changed to aticket for a draw offering a trip to Paris, the numbers were nearlyidentical; 62 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men handed overtheir passwords.

Users were also duped into revealing otherpersonal information, such as birth dates. Roughly half of thosesurveyed admitted to using the same password for multiple services andlocations.

"This research shows that it is pretty simple for aperpetrator to gain access to restricted information by having a chataround the coffee machine, getting a temporary job as a PA orpretending to be from the IT department," said Claire Sellick, an eventdirector for Infosecurity Europe.

"This type of social engineering technique is often used by hackers targeting a specific organisation with valuable data or assets, such as a government department or a bank."

Theresults of the survey are actually good news compared to last year,when 64 per cent of respondents agreed to turn over their passwordinformation for the lure of free chocolate.