Secure e-commerce sites 'vital'

06/08/2008

Businesses need to ensure their e-commerce websites are as secure as possible in the face of rising online fraud, it has been advised.

According to experts speaking to SC Magazine, it may be that security has to be built in from the web design process onwards.

As many as half of all e-commerce sites could harbour a vulnerability that may be exploited by hackers, warned Ken Munro of SecureTest.

Furthermore, the growth of instances of phishing targeting specific brands can also pose a significant threat to e-commerce organisations, Morse's Donal Casey stated.

He added: "However devious and greedy the attack, it's your website and your responsibility. The public will see it that way and so should you."

Jonathan Etheridge of HSBC said that one way the company is using website technology to guard against phishing is by utilising VeriSign's Extended Validation secure socket layer to let consumers know whether they are visiting a genuine HSBC site or not.

According to the 2008 Information Security Breaches Survey carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, nine per cent of large UK businesses have had reports of phishing emails being sent to their customers in the last year.