Could hackers guess your online banking password?

By Joel Stanier

Has anyone else had access to your online banking? How would you know? It's something that most people who access their bank account online worry about from time to time - yet some could be putting themselves unnecessarily at risk.

Research by esure found that one in ten people in the UK have had some kind of online account hacked - including email, social media (e.g. Facebook), shopping and online banking.

Many of these cases occurred simply because people aren't careful enough with their passwords, according to the research. Nearly a quarter of respondents said they keep all their passwords in one place, while a fifth use the same password for several accounts.

What's more, many people use very simple passwords - such as their mother's maiden name or a simple number combination - that could easily be guessed by someone who knows them well, or found by password 'cracking' software used by hackers.

And the research revealed that one in ten have snooped on their own partners by using their passwords without permission.

Nikki Sellers, Head of Home Underwriting at esure, said: "The number of passwords needed to navigate modern life is constantly increasing and this has led many Brits to take serious security risks.

"Writing down passwords is sometimes the only way to avoid forgetting them, but this should then be treated as a highly valuable possession and not carried around or left lying around where it could easily end up falling into the wrong hands."

A bank account expert at Think Money said: "Online banking tends to have a more secure password system than other online facilities, with a combination of an account number, a PIN and then a password. This makes it harder to hack, but also harder to remember, which means some people are tempted to write everything down.

"It's a good idea to try to memorise things like this if you can, but if you really have to write it down, it's important to keep it somewhere safe.

"It's also worth choosing a password that would be hard to guess - such as some kind of code that is memorable to only you. Including punctuation marks, numbers and capital letters can also make things more difficult for hackers."

Image © iStockPhotos / Sodafish bvba

Tags: banking, bank account, password, passwords, bank account password, online banking, online bank, security, hackers, esure

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