BEWARE OF Strangers with Candy

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM

Information security organization Infosecurity Europe conducts an annual survey that questions office workers on what they would give up (passwords, personal information) if something particularly appealing was offered to them or just on a whim. It is done as part of a social engineering exercise to raise awareness about information security. Representatives from Infosecurity Europe masquerading as market researchers offered the survey in London. This year's results from 576 people found:

• Forty-five percent of women versus 10 percent of men would give away their password with a chocolate bar as an incentive. This number dropped, however, 43 percent since last year's survey.

• Sixty-one percent of respondents gave away their dates of birth to the “researchers.“

• More than half of people questioned use the same password for everything.

• Sixty percent of men and 62 percent of women gave out their names and telephone numbers after hearing they could be entered in a drawing to go to Paris.

• Half of workers surveyed said they know their colleagues' passwords.

• Fifty-eight percent said they would give their passwords to someone who called and said they were from the IT department.

“This research shows that it's pretty simple for a perpetrator to gain access to information that is restricted by having a chat around the coffee machine, getting a temporary job or pretending to be from the IT department,” says Claire Sellick, event director for Infosecurity Europe.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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