Web users urged to re-use old passwords

The conventional wisdom that web users should always use strong passwords that are never repeated has been challenged in a new report.

Researchers at Microsoft claim that many web users struggle to remember a long list of complex passwords. They therefore recommend that users only use strong passwords for websites that hold sensitive information, such as banking sites.

For low-risk websites, such as blogs, the researchers suggest that web users divide their accounts into groups, according to sensitivity, and use the same memorable password for all the accounts in each group.