Report: Consumers
Expect E-Commerce Merchants to Take Extra Authentication Steps
May 2, 2011
Eighty-five percent of consumers are worried and
dissatisfied with the level of protection online businesses are providing to
stop fraudsters today according to the results of a study by ThreatMetrix and the
Ponemon Institute. Of those who responded to the survey, 42 percent said they
have been the victim of online fraud. Of those, 80 percent said they did not
report the crime and only 19 percent said they reported it only to the online
business directly. “A lot of fraudulent activity goes unreported today, making
it difficult for online businesses to fully understand the prominence and
seriousness of the problem,” said Reed Taussig, president and CEO of
ThreatMetrix. “With a rise in online transactions and activities across
devices, more needs to be done to educate online merchants, banks, social
outlets and other businesses on how to decrease fraudulent activity.” Nearly
three in four respondents would allow a trusted online business to place an
invisible cookie on their computer to automatically authenticate them, and 82
percent indicated that they would expect an online business to offer
alternative authentication methods if they were unable to match the consumer’s
digital fingerprint to their security system.