If you're anything like the rest of us, you have user names and passwords floating around cyberspace and, even worse, you're doing a poor job at keeping them a secret.

I'll admit that I have at least a half-dozen names and passwords taped to the outer part of my computer screen. I know that's a bad thing, but I also know that I'm not alone.

A recent survey, conducted by US tech security company Rainbow Technologies, found that 55 per cent of computer users have written down a password at least once and 40 per cent have shared a password with someone else.

And forcing us to use a combination of letters and numbers or prompting us to change our passwords every few months has actually increased our likelihood of writing down passwords.

But what else are we to do? Keeping track of an e-mail user name and password was simple enough. But then came online news subscriptions, online auctions, online banking and bill-pay - and each of them brought a new user name and password.

The software - available for download at www.roboform.com - kicks in when the user visits a specific web site - the sign-on page for your online bank, for example - and fills in your user name and password and will even click the Submit button for you.

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