UK Youth at Risk: The Password Reuse Crisis

By Tyrese Garvie

Experian’s latest survey shows that young Brits (aged 18 – 25) could face a ‘credential crisis’ of sorts if they don’t brighten up when it comes to password protection.

“52% of the UK’s youth reuse their email password for a number of online accounts.”

Yes, I know, reusing your password isn’t the cyber-security crime of the century, but it is still a risk that young people should be aware of – you’re essentially giving a crafty criminal the master key to your online life… and dodgy Facebook posts are the least of your problems…

One survey shows that online fraud (the most prevalent crime in England & Wales) in 2017 carried a price tag of around £10bn – with younger people carrying most of the cost; some say this is due to their over-sharing of information in the online world.

Why Young Brits?
Well, the best explanation to why young Britons are the worse offenders when it comes to reusing passwords is that because, unlike their elders and others, the youth have way more online accounts and presence than the older members society and are far more likely to share information online or with others. Only 13% of individuals aged 55+ said that they were offenders when it came to password reuse. Experian’s survey shows that 27% of all Brits (2,100 respondents) reuse passwords.

Create a Secure Password
We realise that not everyone is an absolute pro at making passwords and keeping current with cyber security, so we recommend reading this article written by @LastPass:

Yesterday, a survey from the UK government revealed that over half of Brits aged 18-25 use the same #password across all accounts. We shared our thoughts on creating strong passwords with @KGOrphanides & @WiredUK: https://t.co/KGtFRL7W1R

— LastPass (@LastPass) February 22, 2018

If you’re interested in setting up a LastPass account, you can always contact us and we’ll sort that out for you.

Sending Sensitive Information
Uh-oh: 79% of all respondents admitted that hey had sent highly sensitive information via email. This includes all of the important stuff, like your bank account details, driving licences, NI numbers, etc. Worse of all is that 2/3 of the respondents are yet to delete said sensitive information; meaning that if someone were to gain unauthorised access to their email account, a criminal would have the chance to completely empty the victim’s bank account, steal your identity and change your passwords.

Pink Connect recommends that you set up multi-factor authentication where possible on all accounts.

Multi-Factor Authentication
What is multi-factor authentication? MFA is when you log into an account using your credentials + something more, such as a mobile phone number, or the name of your pet. MFA stops criminals with your password gaining access to your account. You can set this up on your Facebook account here, and is usually used by all large websites.

We’re not alone

“A 2016 survey by the US-based Pew Research Center found that 39% of those quizzed used the same or very similar passwords for many of their online accounts, thus putting themselves at risk of identity theft or fraud”

Our good old friend, the United States, is also an offender when it comes to poor password protection – with roughly 4/10 Americans sharing passwords with friends or family members.

Help
Check out some online materials for password protection or simply call us on 0345 450 9393 opt 1 and talk to us about setting you up with LastPass and ESET (read our review of ESET here).