Infosec: Companies shun new technology and stick to passwords

The study, which sought the views of 300 officer workers and IT professionals, found that only 20 percent of UK organisations have stopped using passwords, with 15 per cent employing tokens and five per cent introducing biometric technology.

he report also shows that the average number of passwords used by one person at work ranged from five to 20, while 71 percent of respondents changed them monthly and ten percent admitted to rarely altering them.

Just under half of those workers surveyed revealed that they used the same password for work access and personal online accounts, such as internet banking, shopping and email, according to the research.

“This survey shows that even those [workers] in large organisations are not as aware as they should be about information security,” said Sam Jeffers, event manager for Infosecurity Europe 2007. “It just goes to show that we still have a long way to go in educating people about security policies and procedures.”