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| Credit Answers > Debt-Management-Articles-2008 > Spare Change |
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Internet risks declining, but still remain high.
According to a recent survey from Consumer Reports, U.S. consumers lost almost $8.5 billion over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes according to
projections from the magazine's annual State of the Net survey featured in the September issue. However, Consumer Reports' survey findings produced some hopeful signs that
online security is slowly improving because the chances of becoming a cybervictim continue to decline.
Consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. Spyware and virus infections have also declined significantly over the past few years. However,
Consumer Reports' projects that problems they cause have resulted in damages of roughly $6.5 billion over the past two years. Consumer Reports also estimates that 3.5 million
U.S. households with broadband remain unprotected by a firewall. Check out Consumer Reports September 2008 edition for the article entitled: 7 Online Blunders. You can learn
which online activity to avoid so you can reduce your chances of becoming a victim of identity theft. For a limited time, you can also read the article on Consumers Reports web
site at www.consumersreports.org.
Many consumers surf for internet coupons.
Internet coupons are of increasing interest to consumers, according to a recent analysis by consumer and media measurement firm Scarborough Research. Eleven percent of
households currently obtain coupons via the Internet, and this has increased 83 percent since 2005. However, the Sunday newspaper remains the number one place for acquiring
household coupons. Fifty-three percent of households get their coupons from the Sunday newspaper. Other leading places for acquiring coupons include the mail (35 percent of
households usually obtain coupons via the mail), in-store coupons (33 percent), preferred customer/loyalty cards (22 percent), in-store circulars (22 percent), weekday
newspapers (17 percent), product packages (17 percent), and magazines (15 percent). All of the coupon acquisition categories have experienced growth since 2005, however none
at the level of Internet coupons.
Verification systems may be violating privacy laws
Recently, numerous states have begun passing laws designed to limit the amount of information which a financial institution may solicit from consumers. As a result of these
new laws, financial institutions are now considering abandoning challenge / response authentication systems in order to reduce their liability and improve their compliance.
Challenge / response authentication systems are security systems that solicit personal information from consumers, usually as part of a login process. As you visit various web
sites, you may have been asked to register and then later answer a challenge question, such as "What was the name of your childhood friend?" The FDIC and several consumer
groups believe that these types of questions may violate privacy laws. There are authentication solutions that meet the regulatory guidelines without resorting to soliciting
personal information from consumers. Alternatives include traditional hardware tokens, software certificates, and virtual tokens. When considering any authentication solution,
the FDIC recommends that financial institutions simply limit the use of personal information.
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