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London - If you like to swap secrets and gossip about your husband or wife online, beware.

Many of us have guessed a partner’s passwords and logged on to social networking sites in order to snoop, research shows.

And, perhaps surprisingly, men are worse than women.

One in ten men uses a loved one’s PIN or password without their knowledge, while women are less duplicitous with 6 percent admitting they do it.

But it seems we have only ourselves to blame for such “cyber hacking”. It is not the result of high-tech intrusion - but merely due to using passwords that have been left around the house, always using the same one or using a code that is easy to guess.

Birthdays, mothers’ maiden names and telephone numbers are all too easy to hack.

In fact, more than three quarters of us are put at risk online by using the same password for multiple accounts - including email, social networking sites, online banking and shopping.

And 24 percent keep all passwords in one place.

Apparently the average person is asked for an access code up to 11 times a day.

The most popular is a mother’s maiden name, with almost 20 percent using this.

This is despite the fact that 15 percent of Britons say they know it is possible for a stranger to get hold of this information.

Almost half keep passwords written down on paper, stored in their phone or computer.

And one in seven of those surveyed admits to carrying passwords around. Despite lax measures to make remembering passwords easier, the average person has lost access to almost three accounts, including email and online shopping, as a result of forgetting passwords.

Nikki Sellers, of insurer esure, which conducted the survey of 1,000 adults, said: “The number of passwords needed to navigate modern life is constantly increasing and this has led many Brits to taking 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 end up falling into the wrong hands.”

People aged 55 and over are the most careful with bank details, the research adds, with 86 percent regularly checking their statements for fraud. This figure drops to only 59 percent for people under 25. - Daily Mail