Security on the Internet is vital to encourage confidence in e-commerce. Unless businesses and consumers alike have trust in this method of communicating and transacting then the Internet and e-commerce will never fulfil its true potential. Perhaps it is because the Internet is faceless. Yet they happily allow their credit card to be taken from their sight for a few minutes to pay for a meal. Without doing the restaurant business a disservice, there is a confidence problem which exists with the Internet that does not have a parallel in the off-line world.
Press reports don t always help.
Extensive coverage was recently given to the case of an American busboy, Abraham Abdullah. He had devised a scheme to fraudulently remove funds from the bank accounts of the rich and famous. He was caught in March this year having removed funds from 217 accounts, including those of Stephen Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. The headlines suggested that this was an audacious piece of computer hacking. Cue concern about the lack of security on the Internet.