Most striking, however, was the rapid change in attitude toward e-mail. Consumers now have a serious distrust of all e-mail thanks to phishing attacks and malicious code delivered via the technology. About 7 out of every 10 who acknowledged a behavior change because of security said that their trust in messages from companies and people they don't know has been affected. Of that number, 85% simply delete suspect mail without reading or opening.
"The educational efforts of all the ISPs, all the banks, and sites like PayPal about not responding to messages from unknown senders has worked," said Litan. Perhaps too well. In fact, the wariness about e-mail is a bigger concern for banks and other companies than fraud itself.
"They're more concerned about this fall in consumer confidence than they are about fraud," said Litan.
The reason is simple economics. "It costs them $7 to answer the phone" when a consumer calls, Litan said. "A 20- to 30-minute call is at least $30. Compare that to a couple of pennies for self-serve help over the Internet or by e-mail."
Banks in particular will face tough going if consumers continue to steer clear of online banking. E-banking, said Litan, costs institutions less than a hundredth the amount spent to handle an in-branch transaction. Compare such huge increases in costs with the half-to-1% fraud rate, and it's easy to see why banks worry about the drop in confidence.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
