E-Commerce and Online Security in First Half of 2004

07/27/2004

VeriSign reports that as its customers' have experienced a rise in e-commerce over the first half of this year, so too have they had an uptick in online security events (with phishing events growing particularly fast).

VeriSign reports the first half of 2004 has been a good one for its customers.

In its latest Internet Security Intelligence Briefing, VeriSign reports that a sample of its merchant customers have seen an increase of 13.2% in total dollars transacted over the past 12 months. Furthermore, during the first half of this year, domain name registrations for active Web sites with .com rose by 23% over the first half of 2003 and registrations for .net domains rose by 20% over the same time frame.

Still, the first half of this year also saw an increase in security breaches online. Security events tracked by VeriSign increased significantly over the first half of 2004, hitting a peak of 4 million in March. VeriSign found the vast majority of security events occurred in the US (83.26%) with Canada trailing claiming 13.76% of events in the first half of 2004.

Looking specifically at a sample of 490 phishing incidents targeted at customers of 16 companies, VeriSign was also able to learn more about the infamous e-mail-based scam. Nearly all of the phishing messages (93%) VeriSign tracked came from forged or spoofed e-mail addresses, while 5% came from sites attempting to disguise their destination and 2% came from "cousin sites," or sites that closely mimic the sites of the companies being spoofed.

Most phishing attacks directed victims to sites hosted outside of the US, namely South Korea, China, Poland, Brazil, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and Indonesia. Attacks tended to occur between 9:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., when most IT workers and help desks are not typically available or on call in the US.

It is only natural that as e-commerce success continues, and the number of functioning Web sites rises, the threat to the security of those domains and those transactions will come into play. The VeriSign report concentrates on a sampling of VeriSign customers, but it is no less applicable to any company conducting business online.

Source of Article: eMarketer

Date of Article; July 27, 2004