Online Buys And Security Threats Both On The RiseOnline Buys And Security Threats Both On The Rise

VeriSign Inc. last week reported that online commerce rose 88% during the holidays last year, with almost $12 billion in sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, compared with $6.4 billion during the same period a year earlier. In its Internet Security Intelligence Briefing, the vendor of security and domain-name registry services attributes this growth to several factors, including increased customer confidence in shopping online and greater broadband penetration. But it also reports that security threats appear to be on the rise. VeriSign says that in the fourth quarter it observed "a record number of new exploits, worms, and viruses, often appearing on public networks within days or hours of the release of proof-of-concept exploit code."

The report finds a decrease in the number of transactions automatically accepted by fraud-screening technology, from 90% in 2003 to 88% in 2004. Yet in 2004, merchants accepted 84% of transactions flagged for manual fraud review, a significant increase from 2003, when only 70% of manually reviewed transactions passed muster as legitimate sales. Fraser Smith, product manager in payment services at VeriSign, interprets this to mean that risk-averse merchants are taking more care to review the rising number of transactions for possible fraud.