More than half of UK adults are taking huge
risks with their online security by using the same password on multiple
websites, according to an Ofcom report.
Despite ever increasing calls to take
online security seriously UK internet users are making themselves easy targets
for hackers.
As well as using the same password on more
than one website, people are also using easy-to-guess passwords. A quarter of
UK adults use birthdays and names as passwords; while these may be easy to
remember they can also be easy for criminals to guess or crack.
Use
The Same Password On More Than One Site?
The research also revealed that just over
60 per cent of people said they used a password to protect their home Wi-Fi
network - up 10 per cent since 2011.
The alarming figures come from Ofcom’s
annual report into how people use and think about technology. The
communications regulator surveyed 1,805 adults aged 16 and over as part of the
research.
James Thickett, director of research at
Ofcom, said that many people ignored the risks: “While our research shows that
some people are still taking security risks online, they clearly feel these are
outweighed by the benefits that the internet brings.”
Make your passwords impossible to crack
·
Length is key to secure passwords - aim for at
least 14 characters
·
A six-character password - even a random
assortment of letters such as iqscjf - could be cracked in less than a tenth of
a second
·
A longer password like ‘FishFacebookVase’ would
take more than 100 centuries to crack using a typical PC
·
Don’t substitute letters for numbers -
‘p455w0rd’ is no more secure than ‘password’
·
Use unique variations of the same password for
each website or service
·
A password manager such as KeePass (www.keepass.info) can help you remember
complex passwords
Government attempts to censor Google
have doubled since 2011
Governments around the world are making
more requests for Google to remove content and cough up the details of people
using its services, according to the company’s twice-yearly Transparency Report
(www.google.com/transparencyreporf).
Requests made by the UK government for info
on people with accounts on Google services rose by six per cent in 2012 to
2,883. Google defines this as user data, with the UK government citing privacy
and security concerns as the main reason for most of its requests.
Google
More worryingly, requests from UK
government to remove content from Google rocketed by 75 per cent, from 114
requests in 2011 to 200 in 2012. Just 55 per cent of these requests led to
Google removing content.
In three highlighted cases, local law
enforcement agencies were unsuccessful in attempts to get Google to remove
YouTube videos criticizing police practices and accusing police of racism.
Around the world, governments asked for
information on 33,634 user accounts last year. A total of 4,096 requests were
made to remove content from Google, up from 2,003 in 2011.
Susan Infantino, Google’s legal director,
said that more governments than ever before were trying to censor the net.
She said: “As we’ve gathered and released
more data over time, it’s become clear that the scope of government attempts to
censor content on Google services has grown.
“In more places than ever, we’ve been asked
by governments to remove political content that people post on our services.”
Tablets will be ‘dead in five years’
Tablets will be obsolete in five years’
time as phones become people’s favorite device, according to BlackBerry boss
Thorsten Heins.
BlackBerry
Tablet OS
“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a
reason to have a tablet anymore,” he said, adding that tablets were not a good
business model.
His views go against common consensus as
tablets continue to be hugely popular with people around the world. Apple and
Samsung have been boosted by huge demand for their tablets. In the last three
months of 2012 Apple sold 22.9 million, up 60 per cent year-on-year.
BlackBerry’s only foray into tablets was a
massive failure. The ill-fated PlayBook was so unpopular that retailers cut its
price by more than 50 per cent just months after it launched in June 2011.
