'Security?' We've heard of it

Two out of three workers happily gave their computer passwords away to complete strangers when asked in Victoria Station, according to a recent survey.

The survey shows a shocking lack of awareness and concern for information security issues among average office workers.

The survey interviewed 150 office workers at Victoria Station, London finding that the majority of them were more than prepared to give away their passwords after a few minutes of friendly chit-chat.

For most of them, the choices were hardly surprising, with "password" being the most popular password.

Others used easily guessable words, like the name of their home country, or their pet.

Business ethics were given equally little credence, with 54 per cent of workers happily admitting that they would take confidential contacts and commercially sensitive information with them when they move from job to job, even though it could damage the company's competitive position and even breach data protection law.

The news wasn't all bad, though - 61 per cent said they wouldn't be able to resist rifling through a folder of confidential information about their colleagues if they happened to find one lying around - which at least means that 39 per cent are capable of exercising some self-control.

And a stunning 84 per cent said they would keep the tit-bits of information they gathered from the confidential files to themselves. We just hope they would protect them with something stronger than the name of their dog as a password.

The survey was carried out by the organisers of the Infosecurity Europe 2002 conference and the newly formed "human firewall Council".