Warning over 'master key' passwords

According to Yahoo! Mail a single password can act as a "master key", giving cybercriminals access to financial and personal details. Sixty-one percent of computer users it questioned admitted to using one main password.

A quarter of the 1,500 respondents also used some sort of system to help them remember their password. Pets' names were the most popular type of password, used by 9% of the computer users surveyed. This was followed by birthdays, which were adopted as passwords by 6% of respondents.

Football clubs were turned into passwords by 3% of computer users questioned, followed by anniversary dates at 2% and star signs at 0.5%. The remaining 4.5% of people using a password system chose "other methods".

Anti-virus updates

The study also found that 8% of PC owners had been victims of online fraud or identity theft. Another 15% of respondents knew someone who had been targeted by an internet criminal.

Although three-quarters of the PC owners questioned had anti-virus software installed on their machines, the same percentage of respondents' computers had been hit by a virus. This implied that most computer users did not keep their anti-virus software up to date, according to Yahoo! Mail.

Worryingly, around half (49%) of respondents admitted to clicking on an "unsubscribe" option in spam emails. Doing so could "open the flood gates" to more spam mails and computer virus, Yahoo! Mail warned.

Junk emails were a "daily but tolerable annoyance" for 45% of respondents, while 29% of computer users accepted junk emails as a "fact of life".

Advice centre

Mark Helvadjian, Yahoo! Mail senior product manager, urged computer users to take steps to protect themselves against internet crime.

He warned: "The PC has become an essential life tool. If an online criminal gets inside your PC they can unlock and access your private details."

He added: "You wouldn't have one master key that simultaneously unlocked your front door, your car and your safe, yet that is basically what a lot of computer owners are doing."

The research was released to coincide with the launch of Yahoo!'s online security information advice centre aimed at home PC users - see link above/right.