The psychology of passwords: 'You won't change until you've been hacked'

We all know the risks of not changing our passwords - yet somehow it is never a priority. Louise Chunn explains why few people bother

You know you should; you know you must! But for some reason you just don't ever seem to get around to changing your passwords. You could simply start using a password manager, an easy-to-access programme that safely tracks and stores your passwords, assigning different ones to each account. But do you? Surely there's not a part of you that actually wants to be hacked by fraudsters?

Many of us struggle with tasks that need to be done, but do not appear to be urgent. "Of course I am a sucker for the urgent over the important. Everyone is," says Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur and author of business books Wilful Blindness and A Bigger Prize. "The important stuff is usually harder. I procrastinate too, where I feel guilty about something and prefer to ignore it.