A third of IT bods abuse administrative passwords to hack into company confidential data.

According to U.S. insecurity outfit, Cyber-Ark, a third of those surveyed admitted to secretly snooping, while just under half confessed that they had accessed information they shouldn’t have. Mark Fullbrook, Cyber-Ark's UK director, said administrative passwords were the 'keys to the kingdom,' giving the IT department the ability to go anywhere in the company.

Privileged passwords were hardly ever changed, with 30 percent being changed every quarter and 9 percent never changed at all.  This meant that even IT staff who have left an organization could still gain access. More than 70 percent of companies rely on outdated and insecure methods to exchange sensitive data, the survey found.