Children's Text Password Behaviors and Parental Advice

With increasing use of technology and the Internet among young children it is imperative to understand how they create passwords to protect their personal information, and also the parental advice they get to create these passwords. To understand this, we conducted two studies. The first study was conducted with children ages 11 to 13 to understand their password practices. The second study was conducted with parents to understand their own password behaviors and the strategies they teach their children to create secure passwords. The results of the studies indicated that children between ages 11 to 13 create simple passwords but believe that these passwords are hard for a stranger to guess. We also found that parents are concerned about their child's safety, but parents who are more aware of security-related cues are more likely to create secure passwords and teach their children to do the same.