Only half of UK consumers believe their credit card information is secure when they shop online, according to research commissioned by IT firm F-Secure.
The internet security firm also found that a third of consumers do not feel safe when banking online. And only 45 per cent of those questioned believe they could spot a phishing email.
The third-party survey of Internet users aged 20 to 40 in the US, Canada, the UK, France and Germany, tested respondentsโ knowledge of online security issues (their โsecurity IQโ) and gauged their confidence in the safety of basic online activities.
Recently F-Secure also pointed to a rise of banking Trojans capable of stealing a userโs banking username and password. F-Secure;s virus labs have witnessed โbankโ themed e-mails that attempt to convince Internet user into installing trojans. They are similar to typical phishing e-mails in that they imitate a bank. The messages link to a website, also imitating the bank.
Only instead of asking the customer to login, and get ‘phished’, the site requests the customer to download and install a certificate. That ‘certificate’ is really a trojan-spy with rootkit features โ enabling the criminals to capture user names and passwords.
โConsumers need to be aware of threats when banking online, but thatโs not to say they shouldnโt do it,โ said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure. โOur research shows that a lot of people are concerned about using their credit card online, but if they follow a simple set of rules, banking online can be safe.โ
F-Secure suggests the following advice for consumers worried about banking online:
Check that the website address you are using is spelt correctly
Ensure you are using a secure site when entering credit card details over the web. Secure sites will either have a padlock symbol or start โhttpsโ.
The latest news on real-time virus threat scenarios is available at the F-Secure Data Security Lab weblog at;
