A recently posted video on YouTube teaches viewer's how to hack into someone's email account in just 15 minutes.

The video showed a group of volunteers follow an online "man in the middle technique" tutorial. It showed them learn in just fifteen minutes how to hack into a computer network. It went on to show them using the technique to obtain each other's login details and passwords.

The experiment was carried out by the internet security company the CPP Group. The experiment used volunteers from numerous different backgrounds including a baker and a retiree.

To date there are an estimated 20,000 videos available on YouTube alone that teach viewers the basics of hacking social media profiles, email accounts, smartphones and PayPal accounts.

The video comes just after Sony's recent security breach which saw close to 100 million users account and payment details compromised.

The video could well lend support to UK chancellor George Osborne's warnings about the growing threat cyber crime presents to the U.K. Speaking at the Google Zeitgeist earlier this month Osborne warned that in 2010 alone, the U.K. Government dealt with at least one serious cyber threat a day.

A report from the Daily Mail has already speculated that as many as 16 per cent of the British population have had their social networking profiles broken into and a further 10 per cent have suffered financially as a result.

CPP have already released a set of tips to avoid falling victim to cyber crime.

The company recommends:

Users change their password regularly and use more obscure word and letter combinations.

Leave any website that makes overt use of unknown certificates and pop ups.

Avoid sending data over unsecured or public wireless networks.

Always check the security behind free wireless connections.

If using a smartphone disable its auto Wi-Fi connect feature.

If concerned, invest in an identity fraud protection product -- which unsurprisingly is what CCP sell.

Sony