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Out of the Shadows, Into the Network

April 9, 2019 — by Radware — 0

Network security is a priority for every carrier worldwide. Investments in human resources and technology solutions to combat attacks are a significant part of carriers’ network operating budgets.

The goal is to protect their networks by staying a few steps ahead of hackers. Currently, carriers may be confident that their network security solution is detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks.

All the reports generated by the solution show the number and severity of attacks as well as how they were thwarted. Unfortunately, we know it’s a false sense of well-being because dirty traffic in the form of sophisticated application attacks is getting through security filters. No major outages or data breaches have been attributed to application attacks yet, so why should carriers care?

Maintaining a Sunny Reputation

The impact of application attacks on carriers and their customers takes many forms:

Service degradation
Network outages
Data exposure
Consumption of bandwidth resources
Consumption of system resources

A large segment of carriers’ high-value customers have zero tolerance for service interruption. There is a direct correlation between service outages and user churn.

Application attacks put carriers’ reputations at risk. For customers, a small slowdown in services may not be a big deal initially. But as the number and severity of application attacks increase, clogged pipes and slow services are not going to be acceptable. Carriers sell services based on speed and reliability. Bad press about service outages and data compromises has long-lasting negative effects. Then add the compounding power of social networking to quickly spread the word about service issues, and you have a recipe for reputation disaster.

Always Under Attack

It’s safe for carriers to assume that their networks are always under attack. DDoS attack volume is escalating as hackers develop new and more technologically sophisticated ways to target carriers and their customers In 2018, attack campaigns were primarily composed of multiple attacks vectors, according to the Radware 2018–2019 Global Application & Network Security Report.

The report finds that “a bigger picture is likely to emerge about the need to deploy security solutions that not only adapt to changing attack vectors to mitigate evolving threats but also maintain service availability at the same time.”

Attack vectors include:

SYN Flood
UDP Flood
DNS Flood
HTTP Application Flood
SSL Flood
Burst Attacks
Bot Attacks

Attackers prefer to keep a target busy by launching one or a few attacks at a time rather than firing the entire arsenal all at once. Carriers may be successful at blocking four or five attack vectors, but it only takes one failure for the damage to be done.

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Here’s How Net Neutrality & Wearable Devices Can Impact 5G

March 28, 2019 — by Mike O'Malley — 1

AT&T and Verizon are committed to an aggressive, multi-city roll out plan in a race to be the first carrier to implement national 5G deployment. We see this competition play out almost daily in the news: AT&T’s “5G E” is slower than Verizon 4G, Verizon declares 5G war on AT&T, Verizon inks a deal with the NFL to bring 5G to stadiums, and so forth. And yet, despite this newsworthy competition between telecom giants, we still have a limited understanding of the benefits and risks of 5G.

There are the obvious benefits – faster service, for one – and risks, like insufficient security infrastructure. But what about other, less considered factors that can impact 5G (both positively and negatively), such as net neutrality and wearable devices? How do they play into the risks and rewards of this communications (r)evolution?

Net Neutrality

Currently, net neutrality in the U.S. is embroiled in partisan politics and it’s unclear whether these regulations will be reinstated. But operating under the current status, in which net neutrality rules are suspended, service providers stand to profit from 5G.

As we’ve previously discussed, 5G allows for service providers to “slice” portions of a spectrum as a customizable service for specific types of devices and different customer segments—and without net neutrality, carriers can conceivably charge premium rates for higher quality of service. In other words, service providers could profit by charging select industries that require large bandwidth and low latency – like healthcare and manufacturing, for example – higher premiums.

This premium service/premium revenue model represents a significant ROI for carriers on their 5G infrastructure investment. Not only does slicing provide flexibility for multi-service deployment, it enables the realization of diverse applications on that physical resource, which helps recoup cost for the capital investment.

However, because implementation will be patchy, with initial focus on high-density, urban areas (versus rural populations), the so-called digital divide may very well deepen, not just for consumers but for rural industries like healthcare and agriculture as well.

Wearable Devices

IoT devices have outpaced the human population for the first time in history. And 5G will undoubtedly fan the flames of interest in wearable devices, due to its projected speed and availability of data.

While these devices can certainly make life easier, and even potentially healthier (think about the ECG app on the Apple Watch!), they also carry enormous risk. Why? Because they’re hackable – and they contain a treasure trove of sensitive data, like your location, health stats, and more. And the risk doesn’t only impact the individual wearing an IoT device; enterprises are likewise at risk when their employees wear devices at work and transmit data over office WiFi.

What’s Next?

With the ever-changing nature of internet regulations and the explosion of wearable devices, security must be top-of-mind for service providers. Not only is security advantageous to end users, but for the carriers as well; best-of-breed security opens the possibility for capturing new revenue streams.

No matter the complexity of securing 5G networks, there are solutions. For example, service providers should consider differentiated security mechanisms, offering security as a service to vertical industries, and segregating virtual network slices to safeguard their networks. And of course, let the (security) experts help the (carrier) experts.

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Here’s How Carriers Can Differentiate Their 5G Offerings

February 28, 2019 — by Mike O'Malley — 0

Much of the buzz surrounding this year’s Mobile World Congress has focused on “cool” tech innovations. There are self-driving cars, IoT-enhanced bee hives, smart textiles that monitor your health, realistic human chatbots, AI robots, and so forth. But, one piece of news that has flown relatively under the radar is the pending collaboration between carriers for 5G implementation.

A Team Effort

As Bloomberg reported, carriers from Vodafone Group Plc, Telecom Italia SpA and Telefonica SA are willing to call “a partial truce” to help each other build 5G infrastructure in an attempt “to avoid duplication and make scarce resources go further.”

Sounds great (who doesn’t love a solid team effort?!)…except for one thing: the pesky issue of competing for revenue streams in an industry fraught with financial challenges. As the Bloomberg article pointed out, “by creating more interdependent and overlapping networks, the risk is that each will find it harder to differentiate their offering.”

While this is certainly a valid concern, there is an obvious solution: If carriers are looking for differentiation in a collaborative environment, they need to leverage security as a competitive advantage.

Security as a Selling Point

As MWC19 is showing us in no uncertain terms, IoT devices—from diabetic smart socks to dairy milking monitors—are the way of the future. And they will largely be powered by 5G networks, beginning as early as this year.

Smart boot and sock monitor blood sugar, pulse rate, temperature and more for diabetics.

Which is all to say, although carriers are nervous about setting themselves apart while they work in partnership to build 5G infrastructure, there’s a huge opportunity to differentiate themselves by claiming ownership of IoT device security.

As I recently wrote, IoT devices are especially vulnerable because of manufacturers’ priority to maintain low costs, rather than spending more on additional security features. If mobile service providers create a secure environment, they can establish a competitive advantage and reap financial rewards.

Indeed, best-of-breed security opens the possibility for capturing new revenue streams; mobile IoT businesses will pay an additional service premium for the peace of mind that their devices will be secure and can maintain 100% availability. And if a competing carrier suffers a data breach, for example, you can expect their customer attrition to become your win.

My words of advice: Collaborate. But do so while holding an ace—security—in your back pocket.

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Securing the Customer Experience for 5G and IoT

February 21, 2019 — by Louis Scialabba — 1

5G is set to bring fast speeds, low latency and more data to the customer experience for today’s digitized consumer. Driven by global demand for 24×7 high-speed internet access, the business landscape will only increase in competitiveness as service providers jockey to deliver improved network capabilities.

Although the mass roll-out of the cutting-edge technology is expected around 2020, the race to 5G deployment has already begun. In addition to serving as the foundation for the aforementioned digital transformation, 5G networks will also deliver the integral infrastructure required for increased agility and flexibility.

But with new benefits come new risks. As network architectures evolve to support 5G, it will leave security vulnerabilities if cybersecurity isn’t prioritized and integrated into a 5G deployment from the get-go to provide a secure environment that safeguards customers’ data and devices.

Cybersecurity for 5G shouldn’t be viewed as an additional operational cost, but rather as a business opportunity/competitive differentiator that is integrated throughout the overall architecture. Just as personal data has become a commodity in today’s world, carriers will need the right security solution to keep data secure while improving the customer experience via a mix of availability and security.

For more insight into how service providers can mitigate the business risks of 5G deployment, please read our white paper.

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Don’t Be A “Dumb” Carrier

February 12, 2019 — by Mike O'Malley — 0

By next year, it is estimated that there will be 20.4 billion IoT devices, with businesses accounting for roughly 7.6 billion of them. While these devices are the next wireless innovation to improve productivity in an ever-connected world, they also represent nearly 8 billion opportunities for breaches or attacks.

In fact, 97% of companies believe IoT devices could wreak havoc on their organizations, and with good reason. Security flaws can leave millions of devices vulnerable, creating pathways for cyber criminals to exfiltrate data—or worse. For example, a July 2018 report disclosed that nearly 500 million IoT devices were susceptible to cyberattacks at businesses worldwide because of a decade old web exploit.

A New Attack Environment

In other words, just because these devices are new and innovative doesn’t mean your security is, too. To further complicate matters, 5G networks will begin to roll out in 2020, creating a new atmosphere for mobile network attacks. Hackers will be able to exploit IoT devices and leverage the speed, low latency and high capacity of 5G networks to launch unprecedented volumes of sophisticated attacks, ranging from standard IoT attacks to burst attacks, and even smartphone infections and mobile operating system malware.

Scary stuff.

So, who is responsible for securing these billions of devices to ensure businesses and consumers alike are protected? Well, right now, nobody. And there’s no clear agreement on what entity is—or should be—held accountable. According to Radware’s 2017-2018 Global Application & Network Security Report, 34% believe the device manufacturer is responsible, 11% believe service providers are, 21% think it falls to the private consumer, and 35% believe business organizations should be liable.

Ownership Is Opportunity

Indeed, no one group is raising its hand to claim ownership of IoT device security. But if service providers want to protect their networks and customers, they should jump at the chance to take the lead here. While service providers technically don’t own the emerging security issues, it is ultimately the operators who are best positioned to deal with and mitigate attack traffic. While many may view this as an operational cost, it is, in actuality, a business opportunity.

In fact, the Japanese government is so concerned about a large scale IoT attack disrupting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they just passed a law empowering the government to intentionally identify and hack vulnerable IoT devices. And who is the government asking to secure the list of devices they find vulnerable? Consumers? Businesses? Manufacturers? No, No, and NO. They are asking service providers to secure these devices from attacks.

Think about it: Every device connected to a network is another potential security weakness. And as we’ve written about previously, IoT devices are especially vulnerable because of manufacturers’ priority to maintain low costs, rather than spending more on additional security features. If mobile service providers create a secure environment that satisfies the protection of customer data and devices, they can establish a competitive advantage and reap financial rewards.

From Opportunity to Rewards

This translates to the potential for capturing new revenue streams. If your mobile network is more secure than your competitors’, it stands to reason that their customer attrition becomes your win. And mobile IoT businesses will pay an additional service premium for the knowledge that their IoT devices won’t be compromised and can maintain 100% availability.

What’s more, service providers need to be mindful of history repeating itself. After providers lost the war with Apple and Google to control apps (and their associated revenue), they earned the unfortunate reputation of being “dumb pipes.” Conversely, Apple and Google were heralded for capturing all the value of the explosion of mobile data apps. Apple now sits with twice the valuation as AT&T and Verizon, COMBINED. Now, as we are on the precipice of a similar explosion of IoT apps that enterprises will buy, the question again arises over whether service providers will just sell “dumb pipes” or whether they will get involved in the value chain.

A word to the wise: Don’t be a “dumb” carrier. Be smart. Secure the customer experience and reap the benefits.

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Millennials “Swipe Right” On Fintech and Security

February 6, 2019 — by Mike O'Malley — 0

Let me cut to the chase: The financial services industry is rapidly changing to satisfy its new best friend, millennials. There’s no getting around it; their sheer numbers necessitate attention. Millennials represent one in three Americans in the workforce, 25 percent of the global population (fun fact: there are more millennials in China than people in the United States!), and have $200 billion in buying power. They are the largest single generation in the workforce today. And, most importantly for financial services, they are 43 percent of all mobile banking and finance usage.

Digital Trumps Traditional

Indeed, millennials don’t value traditional banking like previous generations. Born into a digitally-connected era, they heavily rely on the Internet and smartphones to conduct their business, including managing their finances. According to research from Gemalto, more than one in four (27%) millennials have never even visited a bank branch. Comparatively, 77 percent use online services every month and many consider mobile banking “essential,” with nearly 40 percent reporting that financial apps help them control their finances. This becomes critically important in maintaining trust. Since they’ve never been to a branch, there are no people, no relationships to build loyalty. All trust, loyalty and affinity for the brand comes 100% from experience on the web and via mobile apps. Any breach here, and trust is broken…forever.

And, it’s worth noting, millennials want financial help. Millennials grew up during the global financial crisis, so managing debt responsibly and avoiding risk is very important to them. A TD Bank survey designed to understand these young adults’ banking behaviors found that “while 59 percent of millennials reported that they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ knowledgeable about their day-to-day banking products like checking accounts, they still want advice on personal finance topics,” including savings, credit cards and creating a budget.

In other words, millennials value tools and advice that give them control over debt and credit alike—which helps explain their reliance on fintech over traditional banks for financial advice and things like debt consolidation loans. In fact, millennials are driving a surge in personal loans, 36 percent of which are from fintech lenders.

Opportunity…and Risk

All these statistics converge to make one key point: While there is a huge opportunity for fintech providers to capture market share and growth, there is also sizable risk. Why? Because data security is top of mind for these so-called “digital natives.” They understand the liabilities of trusting organizations, like financial institutions, with their online data and expect that it will be well guarded 24/7 with no lapses.

If it isn’t? say goodbye to your millennial customer base; millennials are 2.5 times more likely to change banks than their older counterparts if they aren’t pleased. And one surefire way to keep them happy is with a secure mobile and/or online customer experience. After all, the number one tool millennials want is better mobile security for financial transactions.

Don’t risk losing the most connected, powerful consumer demographic because of lax security. The guaranteed fallout—customer attrition, reputation loss and more—simply isn’t worth the risk. Proactively securing a secure customer experience is paramount to maintaining a competitive advantage and capturing the trust of your most important customers.

Read “The Millennial View on Data Security” today.

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Growing Your Business: Millennials and M-Commerce

December 6, 2018 — by Mike O'Malley — 0

Millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. labor force—a position they’ve held since 2016—and they’re involved in the majority (73%) of B2B purchasing decisions. Raised in the age of the Internet, they’re digital natives and easily adopt and adapt to new technologies. And mobile apps are their lifelines.

Why does this matter? Well, when you combine Millennials’ tech savviness with their business acumen, their clout in a digital economy comes into focus. As both decision-makers and connoisseurs of mobile technology, they can make or break you in a low-growth economy if your business model doesn’t square with their preferences.

In other words, if you’re not embracing mobile commerce, you may soon be ancient history. This generation has little-to-no use for brick-and-mortar storefronts, banks, etc., instead preferring to use apps for shopping, financial transactions and more.

Of course, making m-commerce a linchpin of your business model isn’t risk free; cybersecurity concerns are of critical importance. Increasingly, personal data protection is tied directly to consumer loyalty to a particular brand, and Millennials in particular care about how their data is used and safeguarded.

You Can’t Rush Greatness

While Millennials are renowned for an “I want it fast, and I want it now” attitude (which explains why 63% of them use their smartphone to shop every day, versus trekking to a store), the biggest mistake you can make is overlooking security in a rush to roll out a mobile strategy.

The fact is, vulnerabilities on m-commerce platforms can result in severe financial impacts; the average cost of a corporate data breach is $3.86 million. If a mobile app or mobile responsive e-commerce site is hit by an application attack, for example, short-term profit loss (which can escalate quickly) and longer-term reputation loss are serious risks. And as we move into 2019, there are several mobile security threats that we need to take seriously.

Baking cybersecurity into your mobile strategy—as a core component, not an add-on—is, without question, necessary. The reason is manifold: For one thing, mobile devices (where your app primarily lives) are more susceptible to attacks. Secondly, mobile commerce websites are often implemented with a web application firewall to protect it. Thirdly, Millennials’ reliance on m-commerce, both as B2B and B2C consumers, means you stand to lose significant business if your app or website go “down.” And finally, Millennials are security conscious.

Securing the Secure Customer Experience

So how can you help ensure your m-commerce platform, and thereby your Millennial customer base, is secure? A number of ways:

Guard your app’s code from the get-go. Test the code for vulnerabilities, ensure it’s easy to patch, and protect it with encryption.
Consider a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to secure your APIs and your website.
Run real-time threat analytics.
Be mindful of how customer data is stored and secured. (Don’t pull an Uber and store data unencrypted!)
Patch often. Because security threats evolve constantly, so must your security patches! Just ask Equifax about the importance of patching…

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list of proactive security measures you can take, but it’s a good start. As I’ve said time and time again, in an increasingly insecure world where security and availability are the cornerstones of the digital consumer, cybersecurity should never be placed on the back burner of company priorities. Don’t wait for an attack to up your security game. At that point, trust is broken with your Millennial customer base and your business is in trouble. Be proactive. Always.

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

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Cybersecurity for the Business Traveler: A Tale of Two Internets

November 27, 2018 — by David Hobbs — 0

Many of us travel for work, and there are several factors we take into consideration when we do. Finding the best flights, hotels and transportation to fit in the guidelines of compliance is the first set of hurdles, but the second can be a bit trickier: Trusting your selected location. Most hotels do not advertise their physical security details, let alone any cybersecurity efforts.

I recently visited New Delhi, India, where I stayed at a hotel in the Diplomatic Enclave. Being extremely security conscious, I did a test on the connection from the hotel and found there was little-to-no protection on the wi-fi network. This hotel touts its appeal to elite guests, including diplomats and businessmen on official business. But if it doesn’t offer robust security on its network, how can it protect our records and personal data? What kind of protection could I expect if a hacking group decided to target guests?

If I had to guess, most hotel guests—whether they’re traveling for business or pleasure—don’t spend much time or energy considering the security implications of their new, temporary wi-fi access. But they should.

More and more, we are seeing hacking groups target high-profile travelers. For example, the Fin7 group stole over $1 billion with aggressive hacking techniques aimed at hotels and their guests. And in 2017, an espionage group known as APT28 sought to steal password credentials from Western government and business travelers using hotel wi-fi networks.

A Tale of Two Internets

To address cybersecurity concerns—while also setting themselves apart with a competitive advantage—conference centers, hotels and other watering holes for business travelers could easily offer two connectivity options for guests:

Secure Internet: With this option, the hotel would provide basic levels of security monitoring, from virus connections to command and control infrastructure, and look for rogue attackers on the network. It could also alert guests to potential attacks when they log on and could make a “best effort.”
Wide Open Internet: In this tier, guests could access high speed internet to do as they please, without rigorous security checks in place. This is the way most hotels, convention centers and other public wi-fi networks work today.

A two-tiered approach is a win-win for both guests and hotels. If hotels offer multiple rates for wi-fi packages, business travelers may pay more to ensure their sensitive company data is protected, thereby helping to cover cybersecurity-related expenses. And guests would have the choice to decide which package best suits their security needs—a natural byproduct of which is consumer education, albeit brief, on the existence of network vulnerabilities and the need for cybersecurity. After all, guests may not have even considered the possibility of security breaches in a hotel’s wi-fi, but evaluating different Internet options would, by default, change that.

Once your average traveler is aware of the potential for security breaches during hotel stays, the sky’s the limit! Imagine a cultural shift in which hotels were encouraged to promote their cybersecurity initiatives and guests could rate them online in travel site reviews? Secure hotel wi-fi could become a standard amenity and a selling point for travelers.

I, for one, would gladly select a wi-fi option that offered malware alerts, stopped DDoS attacks and proactively looked for known attacks and vulnerabilities (while still using a VPN, of course). Wouldn’t it be better if we could surf a network more secure than the wide open Internet?

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

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The End of the Telephone

November 20, 2018 — by David Hobbs — 1

Telephones have come a long way in their short lives, evolving from a simple transmitter and receiver to today’s ubiquitous smartphones. But as technologies continue to consolidate and automation takes over, what are we going to do at the end of the telephone? And what are the security implications of that?

Imagine a world where phone numbers have no meaning, and we instead rely on a system resembling an Internet IP address that shifts according to location. Afterall, we’re increasingly using smartphone apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, FaceTime, Skype (and so many more!) to communicate. How often do we actually dial our friends and family to talk? Moreover, how many of us still even own landlines?!

The fact is, we, as a society, interact more and more via apps, and I predict that the end of POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) will come faster than you think. Even my ageing parents have disconnected their home phones and my 84-year-old father uses an iPhone!

So, with cybersecurity in mind, what does this new trend mean? Do we have ways to integrate our businesses into this new era? How do we keep our customers, friends and family connected, while keeping our data safe?

The reliance on chat apps is beneficial in that it helps avoid international call charges and allows us to be global citizens without boundaries imposed by phone companies. But it also opens us up to vulnerabilities, like potentially communicating and exchanging sensitive data with the wrong person(s). While two factor authentication—which is used, for example, when you log into a bank account from a public Internet device and the site confirms your identity via text or a call—works now, when phone numbers disappear, it won’t do any good.

This is where the future of innovation plays a critical role; we will need a new way to identify and connect with people beyond face recognition, fingerprints on an iPhone or a password generated by a system. For example, 5G networks allow for the design of software defined private networking and the ability to provide function virtualization. We should begin to see full security stack solutions at the endpoint of radio /5G /WiFi, without security having to live in the central office.

Look forward to the future where trust and identity are going to be better than some sort of robot speak of numbers and data on the screen.

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

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Online Security Concerns Split UK Black Friday Shoppers

November 14, 2018 — by Radware — 0

Shopping online on Black Friday Weekend can be a great way of getting the best deal as retailers slash prices across their range. But as security risks mount and hackers continue to target consumers’ personal data, could shoppers turn their backs on online stores and return to more traditional, secure methods?

To understand UK consumers’ attitudes to shopping online at Black Friday and how they balance security with convenience, Radware sought the opinions of 500 UK adults. The results show that an overwhelming majority—more than 70%—of UK consumers do not think companies are doing enough to protect their personal data on Black Friday. In fact, over 10% reported that they had personally been affected by a data breach.

As a result, 45% of respondents said they would not be shopping online, including 32% who said they would visit a physical store instead.

Security v. Convenience

The fear of having personal data compromised while shopping online is undeniable: 40% of UK consumers plan to change their online habits during Black Friday, including 25% who will reportedly only shop with well-known brands or will check that the website is secure before making a purchase.

These security concerns have resulted in a split approach to Black Friday shopping. 55% of the survey respondents stated that convenience, price or home delivery was worth the potential risk, while the remaining 45% preferred to avoid online shopping, including 32% who said they would visit a physical store instead. And for those aged 55 and older, more than 25% stated they would rather order by telephone.

The research shows that many consumers are aware of the risks of online shopping, and while some are willing to accept this for convenience and price, others are avoiding online shopping altogether. Organisations, especially retailers, need to invest in strong cybersecurity if they want to increase trust and attract new customers at key trading periods.

Data Culture

The research found that 12% of respondents had been the victim of a data breach, and this figure rose to 17% when including respondents who had received an alert from their bank that an attempt had been stopped.

While all age groups were affected by data breaches, those under 35 are more likely to utilize identity check websites and even the Dark Web in order to confirm whether their data has been breached.

Respondents were generally open about sharing their experiences online, with 44% saying they would tell a friend if they fell for a scam online to help them avoid the same fate. A further 16% said they would ask for help while 7% would try to solve any problems themselves. Only 3% would keep quiet out of embarrassment.

Connected Threats

With Internet-connected devices expected to be top-sellers this Black Friday, Radware also considered consumers’ opinions of connected devices and the threats they pose.

When asked who has responsibility for keeping connected devices secure, almost 40% responded that it was their personal responsibility. A further 20% said security was up to their Internet service provider, while 7% hold the device manufacturer responsible.

Only 3% placed responsibility with the UK Government, despite the recent creation of a voluntary Code of Practice aimed at consumer products, developed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Opinions were again split on the risks of connected devices, with 52% saying security threats were outweighed by convenience, including 36% who said devices make their lives easier.

However, when told that unsecure devices could be used to spy or listen on owners, 25% were shocked it was even possible, 21% said they would put off using the devices, and 18% said they felt nervous in their own home.

While personal opinions vary regarding security vs. convenience, the overall sentiment is one of low trust in online retailers. At such a crucial shopping time of year, retailers must proactively convince consumers that their digital shopping experience is secure. In fact, security should be leveraged as a selling point to demonstrate that customer data safety takes priority over sales on Black Friday. Retailers that secure the customer experience and ensure customer data is safe will be the winners not only on Black Friday, but all year round.

METHODOLOGY: The survey was completed by Radware via a Google Survey conducted in November 2018 among a sample of 500 UK adults.

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

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Older Posts

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Maintaining a Sunny Reputation

Always Under Attack

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

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Net Neutrality

Wearable Devices

What’s Next?

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

Share this:

A Team Effort

Security as a Selling Point

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

Share this:

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

Share this:

A New Attack Environment

Ownership Is Opportunity

From Opportunity to Rewards

Read “Creating a Secure Climate for your Customers” today.

Share this:

Digital Trumps Traditional

Opportunity…and Risk

Read “The Millennial View on Data Security” today.

Share this:

You Can’t Rush Greatness

Securing the Secure Customer Experience

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

Share this:

A Tale of Two Internets

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

Share this:

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

Share this:

Security v. Convenience

Data Culture

Connected Threats

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

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