"Short term there are some tactical things that banks are doing, like personalizing e-mail. They're also moving away from sending statements by e-mail and instead are just sending messages that tell customers their statement is ready and available on the site," said Litan. But in the end the only thing that will turn around consumer confidence will be a safer Internet. Among her recommendations: stronger user authentication that moves beyond the usual user name and password.
Gartner's results conflict with a survey published earlier in November that said consumer morale was on the upswing. That poll, done for online payment provider CheckFree and seconded by James Van Dyke, an analyst with Javelin Strategy & Research, claimed that the number of people who don't trust the Internet with financial information dropped to 8% this year from 20% in 2004.
"The panic is over," Van Dyke said in a Nov. 2 interview.
Litan disagrees. "Phone-based surveys just don't work when you're asking about online shopping and banking," countered Litan, who said Gartner's Web-based polling results were backed by similar studies done by the Federal Trade Commission. "You start asking people about security and online banking, and they just hang up."
Litan authored a similar survey in 2005, but "it's not apples to apples," so direct comparisons are difficult. However, she concluded that although the number of Americans whose behavior has been affected by security concerns remained about the same this year as in 2005, "there's more of a financial impact now. More people are spending much less.
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.
There are many network courses that can address your present job's priorities and help you gain the needed skills to keep pace with industry changes and new technologies.
