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Security Concerns Crimping Online Shopping
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-11-28
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As well as websites did at the start of the holiday shopping season, there is a concern that the numerous incidents of security breaches that have made news over the past year may keep some otherwise energetic shoppers and their wallets offline.
 | | "Identity theft? Priceless." |  |
Through 2006, close to $2 billion may have been left on the table as worried consumers chose not to do business with online retailers, according to a Gartner research report. Their August 2006 survey of 5,000 US adult Internet users found a couple of big numbers.
Those who refuse to shop online over those concerns likely held $1 billion back from web shopping. And about $913 million stayed in the pockets of active online shoppers who felt uneasy due to worries over the sorts of problems that have happened in several instances.
Online commerce has taken the biggest hit, as concerns over identity theft, security breaches, or exposure to Internet-based attacks (like cross-site scripting or browser exploits) affect nearly half of the adults online. Gartner said 46 percent of 155 million US online users are concerned enough that it has affected their behavior for online transactions, purchasing payments, and email.
Facing those issues means websites will need to take a two-prong approach to allaying consumer concerns. Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Avivah Litan said in the report that such sites need to enhance consumer confidence while attacking fraud and other criminal activity:
"The two goals don't necessarily call for the same technical solutions since the most-effective fraud prevention applications are often invisible to consumers and criminals," Ms. Litan said.
"A layered approach to solving security problems is the most effective. Companies should implement back-end fraud detection, stronger user authentication (beyond single factor passwords), transaction verification for high-risk transactions, and data masking/truncation of sensitive data that is shown on Web-based screens."
These issues have likely kept nearly 33 million people from doing online banking. Ongoing concerns about email have led to people who have backed off online commerce to likewise distrust email as a communications medium.
Gartner said almost 70 percent of those concerned about security incidents do not trust email from anyone they do not personally know. Messages from unknown senders get deleted at an 85 percent clip.
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Tag: Online Shopping
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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