How Hackable Are We?

Survey reveals 80% of UK adults reuse passwords across multiple accounts and one in eight Britons use a single password for everything.

In 2024, Action Fraud reported 35,434 reports of social-media and email account hacking, up from 22.5k in 2023.

Shocked by this, Hybrid Cloud Services provider, DTP Group, surveyed the general public to find out how strong their password security is. They found that one in eight people (12.45 per cent) use one password across all accounts. If applied to the national population, the findings suggest that over six million Britons could be relying on just one password for everything.

Key Findings

Only 1 in 5 (19.12 per cent) use a unique password for every account, meaning roughly 80% of UK adults reuse passwords
Over a third of people (36.23 per cent) only use 1-3 different passwords
Despite more than half (53.4 per cent) having 1-10 accounts that need passwords
Nearly 60% (59.6%) use between one and six passwords across all their accounts, approximately 32 million people at a higher risk of being hacked through password reuse

Most people (69%) have between one and 20 online accounts – yet only a small share use enough unique passwords to cover them all.

How hackable are we?

No. of online accounts with passwords	Percentage
0	3.5
1–5	28.8
6–10	24.6
11–20	14.9
21–50	11.2
51+, please specify	0
Prefer not to say	17

The survey shows that most UK adults manage between one and twenty password-protected accounts, with almost a third (28.8 per cent) holding 1–5 and a further 24.6 per cent managing 6–10. Only a small minority (11.2 per cent) juggle more than 20 accounts. While users may not have hundreds of logins, they still handle enough accounts for password reuse to become a significant security risk. Even with a moderate number of logins, many people struggle to maintain unique, strong passwords, creating easy entry points for hackers if one account is breached.

No. of different passwords used	Percentage
1 password across all accounts	12.45
2–3	23.77
4–6	24.4
7–10	14.08
11+, please specify	0.5
N/A – don’t use the same password for any	19.12
Prefer not to say	5.66

When it comes to password habits, the findings reveal a worrying picture: 12.45% of people use one password across every account, and almost 60% rely on six or fewer passwords in total. Only 19.12% of respondents say they use a completely unique password for each account, the best-practice standard recommended by cybersecurity experts. This means millions of users could have multiple accounts compromised if just one password is leaked; a single data breach can cascade across personal, work, and financial platforms.

Together, these two tables show a clear mismatch between the number of accounts people manage and the number of passwords they actually use, proof that password reuse is a widespread and risky habit in the UK.

“Password reuse remains one of the most consistent and preventable drivers of account takeover. Our survey shows that a minority of people take the simple step of using unique credentials, that single behaviour change, combined with multifactor authentication and password managers, would reduce a significant portion of credential-stuffing and phishing success.”
Guy Hawkridge, Head of IT & Security at DTP Group

The message is simple: one password is never enough. Millions of people could be just one breach away from losing access to their email, shopping, or banking accounts. Using a password manager and turning on two-step verification are quick, free steps that make a huge difference in how “hackable” we really are.