75% of people use their email passwords on Facebook, study says

via Download Squad by Jay Hathaway on 8/17/10

Filed under: Security, E-mail

It’s really easy to remember your Facebook password when it’s the same as the password on the email address you use to sign into Facebook. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly insecure. If someone gets one of your passwords, they’ve got both. Despite the seemingly obvious problems with using the same password for social networks and email, a new study from BitDefender says 75% of Web users do it. Doh!

The usernames, email addresses and passwords in the study, over 250,000 of them, were “easily found online,” from sources like BitTorrent and blogs. Of course, that makes me wonder about the 75% number. If the sample is from passwords that have already been compromised, it makes sense that they wouldn’t be the most secure passwords around. Either way, these numbers should serve as a warning about making sure you use strong passwords, and make them different for every account.

[via Switched]

75% of people use their email passwords on Facebook, study says originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook – Security – Social network – Password – User