In the experiment, conducted by Infosecurity Europe, researchers posed as marketers and asked strangers to fill in a survey in return for a chocolate bar. One of the questions on the survey asked people to reveal their passwords.

Nearly half of women questioned were willing to give the information to total strangers, while men seemed more wary, with only one in ten handing out their security details.

"This type of social engineering technique is often used by hackers targeting a specific organisation with valuable data or assets such as a government department or a bank," says Sellick.