US and western European businesses are seeing their
online sales grow, but many of them have questions about the
security of their networks, according to a survey by RSA
Security.
Three-quarters of businesses surveyed said they have completed
more online transactions in the last year than they had in years
past, and only 1% said they saw a decline. But 67% of US businesses
reported some concern about the vulnerability of their networks,
while 37% of businesses in the UK, France and Germany also
expressed security concerns.
Results from business and consumer respondents to the survey
showed a gap between security confidence and use of the internet
for transactions, said RSA in announcing its first internet
confidence security index.
Meanwhile, a survey released by the Business Software Alliance
(BSA) found that IT decision makers in North America and Europe
have grown more concerned about security over the past two years.
Seventy-eight percent of the respondents to the BSA survey said
they have increased the number of IT security projects, and
three-quarters said IT security has become a critical part of their
business planning.
The irony is this lack of security confidence doesn’t seem to
affect consumer use of online channels, which are continuing to
gallop along; a case of convenience overriding caution.