Thousands of employees could be jeopardising corporate security by divulging computer passwords to external sources.

Studies by UK security group Infosecurity Europe have shown 64% of employees were prepared to give their passwords to someone else and 67% believed that someone else in their organisation knew the CEO’s password.

When asked about other confidential issues, two-thirds (66%) said they would look at a file containing everyone’s salary details if they were sent it by mistake, while 20% said they would pass the information on to colleagues.

Sam Jeffers, event manager, Infosecurity Europe 2007, said: ‘It just goes to show that we still have a long way to go in educating people about security policies and procedures.

‘The person trying to steal data from a company is just as likely to be an attractive young woman acting as a honey trap as a hacker using technology to find a way into a corporate network.’