Study finds that 14 percent of U.S. consumers "borrow" free Wi-Fi

A new study from Accenture reveals that 12 percent of U.S. and U.K. respondents admit to using someone else’s Wi-Fi connection. Accenture says that piggybacking is more common in the United States, with one in seven people--14 percent-- admitting to borrowing someone else’s signal. And, not surprisingly, the practice is more popular among 18-to 34-year-olds.

The study, a rather shallow survey of 800 telephone interviews, also found that nearly half of all respondents use the same password for all online accounts. It doesn’t indicate whether they’re using strong passwords, however. Accenture says that 25 percent of respondents said they wouldn’t shop at an online retailed that had suffered a security breach; 33 percent said they’d still shop at the e-tailer, but wouldn’t use credit cards.

Finally, the study found that people in the United States are more likely to keep their security software up to date than their U.K. counterparts. One in 20 U.S. respondents said they never update security software; in the U.K., that ratio was one in 7.