PC survey says women are more password savvy than men

A new survey on security awareness found that women are more password savvy than blokes.

According to a worldwide study by PC, 47 % of men use the same password for every website they visit, in comparison with just a quarter (26 %) of women who use the same insecure practice. Nearly two-thirds of men polled said they would open a link or attachment from a friend without first checking its provenance, as compared to a more cautious 48 % of women.

The survey results showed that men were generally better informed than women about online risks, despite this apparent blokish complacency. For example, 85 % of men were aware that channels including IM, email and webpages can be abused to spread malware. Meanwhile, 44 % of women were blind to the danger that malicious threats are liable to crop up on sites including Facebook and Twitter.

Moreover, the survey revealed that a third of Brits never update their security software, compared to 5 % of Germans and 7 % of the French. The UK also leads the world in surfing without security protection. Almost one in ten Brits (9 %) go online without any kind of information security prophylactic. Nevertheless, the French were tagged as most likely to use the same password across all the websites they frequent, 56 % used only one password compared to 45 % in Benelux, 35 % in the UK and just 16 % in Germany.

Around 4,500 people visiting the PC Tools website were quizzed as part of the survey, which was supplemented by street surveys in the UK, France, Germany and Benelux.