Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Video: Jimmy Kimmel shows how easy it is to trick people into telling you their passwords

Published Jan 16th, 2015 4:50PM EST
Jimmy Kimmel Stealing Passwords
Image: Jimmy Kimmel Live

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Here at BGR, we’ve done our best over the years to give you everything you need to keep your private information safe, but we never got around to covering what you should do if you’re approached by a camera crew on the streets of Los Angeles.

Step 1: Don’t willingly tell them your password.

MORE HUMOR: The funniest thing you’ll see today: Stuck on a plane with a hilariously annoying Sir Patrick Stewart

On Jimmy Kimmel Live this week, Kimmel sent a film crew out to Hollywood Boulevard to see how easy it would be to extract a password from an unsuspecting stranger. As it turns out: it’s very, very easy.

No matter how many government agencies and third-party security firms are out there working on securing our data, there’s not a program on Earth that can stop a gullible individual from simply handing over their password to someone on the sidewalk holding a camera. This really puts a new spin on the Sony Pictures hack — maybe someone outside the offices had a camera?

So yes, laugh all you want, but think long and hard about whether or not you might fall for the same prank if you were in their shoes. Then feel free to continue laughing.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.