McAfee Gets a Head Start on Holiday Shopping
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 6:12 pm by David DeWalt
A staggering number of e-commerce Web sites are hacked into each year. As a consumer, it’s hard to know who to trust when you shop online, so as the CEO of McAfee I wanted to broaden our portfolio to include even stronger protection for online consumers. So today, I’m really excited that we have announced our intent to acquire ScanAlert, creators of the HACKER SAFE certification service. I’m sure you’ve seen their name on some of the sites where you shop.
U.S. consumers will spend nearly $160 billion dollars this year on products and services online. They’ll provide personal credit card information to e-commerce sites, many of which have been under-protected. ScanAlert audits and certifies the security of 8,000 customers representing more than 75,000 Web sites. With this technology, McAfee can offer a security certification service to more than 116 million U.S. consumers who shop online.
This acquisition also enhances McAfee’s triple play protection, securing consumers on the PC, Web and mobile platforms. We plan to integrate ScanAlert’s e-commerce service into our SiteAdvisor technology to enhance our Web rating system and create the industry’s only service that helps consumers stay safe as they search, surf, and now shop.
For online merchants, the HACKER SAFE logo boosts consumer confidence and drives an average 14% increase in conversion rates. Merchants gain greater visibility in comparison shopping, proactive protection against vulnerabilities and increased PCI compliance.
This is an exciting day for consumers, online businesses, investors and McAfee employees. The early feedback we’ve received from financial analysts has been extremely positive. I’m proud that McAfee can play an even stronger role in safe surfing and safe shopping.
Until next time,
Dave
- Posted in CEO Perspectives
I just purchased ScanAlert monitoring for my 3 e-commerce websites. I sure hope in increases my revenue 14% as stated in the article.
D. Baker – I just thought your comment needed a little clarification. The article by Mr. Dewalt does not state it will increase your revenue by 14%. It does say: “For online merchants, the HACKER SAFE logo boosts consumer confidence and drives an average 14% increase in conversion rates.”
That is an INCREASE IN CONVERSION rates, not a 14% increase in your revenue. Big difference between the two, wouldn’t you agree?
I admire Mr. DeWalt a great deal, have never met him or talked to him, but to see him misquoted, is something I could not overlook. Also, it is a small item, but you mentioned it was in an article – and I beleive it was in a “blog”, not a formal article… Just having some fun with you on that one.
David,
I’m impressed with the revenue stats…
However, I have a question about the true security posture Hacker Safe achieves for a web site/web application.
I am sure you are aware of the OWASP Top 10. For our readers, The OWASP Top Ten provides a MINIMUM standard for web application security (www.owasp.org). This list of the top ten most critical web application security vulnerabilities represents a broad consensus about what the most critical web application security flaws are. This standard exceeds the PCI DSS standard and typically makes us security professionals actually sleep better at night.
Is a “Hacker Safe” site OWASP Top 10 2007 Compliant?
For anyone who would like to read more about the standard: http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2007
We just purchased ScanAlert monitoring for our e-commerce website CondomJungle.com to protect even more our online consumers. People want to feel safe when shopping online. We sell condoms and advicing public about safer sex so why don`t give the same safety to our customers:-)
The app itself, however, contains lots of small UI details that make it easy to use. On the shopping list, for example, it only shows a quantity if it is greater than one. Another nice feature is the ability to turn off screen rotation.Online Shopping Now