51% of WFH Parents Say Children Have Accessed Work Accounts

In addition, 14% of surveyed parents who are working from home say their children have access to their work devices, new data shows.

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

December 17, 2020

2 Min Read
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The line between work and everyday life continues to blur: A new 1Password survey on password use and online security in family life finds more than half (51%) of parents who work from home (WFH) say their children have accessed their work accounts.

With 42% of the US labor working from home full time, Stanford data shows, that's a bit concerting. In addition, 14% of respondents say their children have access to work devices, and many shared stories of them "upending their work product" – for example, accidentally deleting a presentation.

That said, data shows parents are teaching kids about online safety. Forty percent say they are teaching children ages three to four about online security and using passwords; 13% say their kids were under five years old when they helped them create a password for an online account.

Nearly half of parents let children access devices with saved passwords on them, data shows, but 14% admit their kids have caused trouble by accessing an account with a saved password. One noted their child got into their bank account and wired money to a random account. 

More than 75% of families share passwords by using a password manager, writing them down, or creating a spreadsheet. However, some don't change them as often as they should: More than one-quarter (26%) of respondents still use the first password they created for an online account, and 5% say that 10 years later, they're still using a password their parents helped them create. 

Read more details here.

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Dark Reading Staff

Dark Reading

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