Online shopping – Employer and Security Issues.

As Christmas is nearly upon us again, the last minute rush to buy the remaining
presents is intensifying. But according the APACS, the UK payments association
(apacs.org.uk), 85% shoppers find the high street too crowded and stressful.
Therefore many of us are increasingly using the internet to buy our presents; it
is easy, quick and you do not have to endure the cold weather or long queues.
Also, the presents are delivered to your door within one or two days and some
are even gift wrapped in the process.

We are spending online at an average rate of £4.57 million per hour in the run-
up to Christmas – (IRMG - Interactive Media in Retail Group - img.org ). “38% of
those sales have taken place outside of traditional shopping hours, either before
9am or after 6pm.” That surely means that 62% of those sales are placed during
working hours. This is causing information security experts like commissum to
fear that many shoppers will be using their company’s time and resources to do
their shopping in working hours. This can open organisations up to a number of
risks such as loss of productivity, reduction of available bandwidth and increase of
personal email which can lead to more spam and phishing attacks. Companies are
therefore advised to provide employee with awareness training such as provided
by commissum.

But if the internet is such a convenient way to buy your last minute presents why
aren’t we all using the online shops? After all, the online market is currently £ 1.6
billion of a potential £ 5 to £ 6 billion to be spent leading up to Christmas.
Apparently one in three of us are avoiding the online shops because of the
perceived dangers of fraud, commissum are therefore helping online shops to
keep their systems secure with their PCI DSS related services.

At commissum [http://www.commissum.com] we often see evidence of users not taking simple measures
to reduce these risks. Neither are they aware of the risks of their actions while
purchasing goods online. This is backed-up by statistics from Card watch
(cardwatch.org.uk) concluding that 1 in 8 online shoppers fail to logout a
shopping site and 1 in 4 online shoppers do not check whether a website is safe
and secure.

We think that online retailers could do more to promote safe online shopping
giving simple advice while guiding online shoppers through the payment process.
They could remind online shoppers to make sure their computer is protected with
up-to-date virus protection and that the firewall is activated; that their computer
browser is set to the highest level of security notification and monitoring. Ask
online shoppers to check whether they can see the “https:” at the beginning of
the website address or to ensure that the security icon – the locked padlock or
unbroken key symbol – is showing in the bottom of their browser window. And
tell online shoppers to log-out of the website when they are finished and to store their credit card safely.

Providing general awareness on safe online shopping will create understanding
of the dangers involved and will increase consumer knowledge and confidence to
shop more online. It will enable us to avoid spending hours in overcrowded high
streets and in doing so reduce our stress levels.

Visit the websites cardwatch.org.uk, banksafeonline.org.uk and getsafeonline.org,
for more information about how to shop and bank safely online.

With 20 years of experience, commissum [http://www.commissum.com] is adept at offering practical advice
and recommending cost-effective solutions, to deliver a joined-up, coherent
approach to protecting an organisation's information assets.

commissum,
Quay House,
142 Commercial Street,
Leith, Edinburgh,
EH6 6LB,
Scotland,
United Kingdom

t: 0845 644 3217

This release was published on openPR.