GEC NEWS WIRESecurity is the kingmaker of the ecommerce world. Those that get it will reap rewards and customer loyalty
Retailers in the Middle East were today urged to stay prepared for increased cyber attack threats as record numbers consumers prepare to shop online this holiday season.
“Today’s consumer is increasingly online and mobile, and that is reflected in their shopping habits. This is putting pressure on retailers to ensure their systems are fit-for-purpose and, above all, capable of delivering a safe and reliable experience”, said Diego Arrabal, VP, Southern Europe and Middle East, F5 Networks.
“Excitement is understandably high going into the holiday season but any heightened online activity will also bring with it a barrage of new, unpredictable and complex risks. While some cybercriminals will be looking at taking down big names with tactics like distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks, others will be on the hunt for your personal data,” added Arrabal.
Arrabal recommends that a key part of coping with the growing threat is to shore up mobile payments, which Gartner has forecast to grow around threefold by 2017 to around $721 billion worth of transactions by more than 450 million users.
Arrabal pointed to the increasing popularity and potential of solutions like clientless online fraud protection systems. These enable organisations to arm devices in real-time against all manner of online threats without the user having to do anything, snuffing out the danger of things like malicious HTML changes or script injections before the trouble starts.
“Switched on retailers can also give customers invaluable credit card peace of mind by using solutions that rigorously encrypt at the application level, ensuring that any data intercepted by troublemakers is impenetrable. Security is the kingmaker of the ecommerce world. Those that get it will reap rewards and customer loyalty. Those that don’t will soon be overlooked.”
