Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 06 May 2009 11:36
Business IT -
Security
Page 1 of 3
Australians, it seems, don’t have much faith in their security and the methods used to verify their identity.
An online survey of 203 Australians commissioned
by Salmat VeCommerce, found increasing concerns amongst consumers about
their security, and particular fears that traditional PINs and
passwords don’t provide adequate protection of their personal
information.
Of those surveyed by research company, callcentres.net, 67 per cent
believed that their security details were at risk, with just over half
(51 per cent) saying they felt that someone else may be able to
accurately guess their password, PIN or security details for
interactions over the phone. And, 59 per cent said they believed
someone else may actually know these details.
According to SalmatVeCommerce managing director, Paul Magee,
extrapolation of the study to the wider Australian population, equates
to about 44 million accounts held by Australians being regarded as
currently vulnerable.
Magee said an increasing number of consumers in the Australian market
believe that conventional forms of identity verification, such as PINs
and passwords, were becoming more vulnerable to fraud, theft or misuse.
“These concerns are focused around the ease with which the personal
information can be guessed, the possibility of information being stolen
and the use of technology to hack information.”
Magee says that in the same study conducted in 2008, 15 per cent of
Australian consumers considered the use of passwords in the
identification process as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ vulnerable, with this
figure this year increasing to just over one in four consumers, or 27
per cent of those surveyed.
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