Ever wonder what are children know about usernames and passwords? Who taught them! Did you as their parent provide them guidance and follow up with them to verify what and how they surf the InterWebbings?
You might be surprised that most children, Tweens and Teens use weak or no password at all. Actually close to 70% of children ( and yes many adults too) leave passwords that are not required to be changed 'blank' or something weak like their name or password1.
From ITickr.com
Random Password Statistics
Number of online accounts that an average user has: 25
Number of passwords that an average user has: 6.5
% of US consumers that use 1-2 password across all sites: 66%
Number of times an average user login per day: 8
Average password length: 8
Most commonly used password: password1
% of users that use personally meaningful words: 54.9%
% of users that use the ‘Remember my password’ function: 28.6%
% of users that write down their password: 15%
Average time users maintain the same password: 31 months.
The following image says it better than anything I will write in this Blog post!
So talk to your children about passwords and help them understand what makes a good password and how to protect it and use different passwords for different websites. Come up with a formula to use different passwords for email than you use for gaming sites, than you use for Facebook.
Use things like SuperGenPass or LastPass for more control and to help randomize your passwords.
If you use the same username (email address) which we generally have to on the Internet and you also use the same password on all your websites, when something like the Gawker breach occurs, all your logins are subject to being taken over by a person looking to steal information or worse, your financial or person information which can include your identity.
Don't get "Gawked"... Use different passwords for different websites.
