Not only at Christmas time: Online shoppers stumble over passwords
Just in time for the Christmas shopping season and the so-called "Black Friday", Kaspersky Lab, together with the French opinion research institute Opinion Way, analyzed the shopping behavior of Germans and Europeans in a study. According to the study, the majority (60 percent) of the German users surveyed want to buy most of their Christmas presents online. However, many have problems remembering the passwords for their accounts at online stores. Six out of ten Germans surveyed have already had to have their passwords reset.
For Americans, Christmas shopping is associated with one date in particular: On the fourth Friday in November - i.e. today - "Black Friday," retailers outbid each other with discounts. It's a trend that has now reached Europe, too, especially on the Internet. Here, too, numerous online stores and mail-order companies organize discount days and weeks around Black Friday.
In fact, Christmas gifts are readily purchased online, especially in Germany, as the survey by Kaspersky Lab shows. As many as 60 percent want to cover the majority of their gift needs this way. Across Europe, online shopping is the trend among 52 percent of respondents.
Reset passwords
But with increasing use of the Internet, many find it difficult to remember the passwords for all the online stores they use. Only 39 percent of respondents from Germany said they had never been embarrassed by having to reset one of these passwords. 54 percent admit that this happens to them at least once a month, and for 8 percent it is even the case every day. And 7 percent have to have their password reset every time they visit an online store. This puts the Germans roughly in line with the European average. The main problem is the rules with which online stores want to force their customers to choose strong and therefore secure passwords. 48 percent of respondents from Germany (Europe: 47 percent) complain that these rules make it difficult to remember passwords. Nevertheless, a majority seems to recognize that this is a necessity, because only 28 percent in Germany (Europe: 34 percent) really feel that these rules are a nuisance.
Kaspersky Lab has therefore developed Kaspersky Total Security - Multi-Device, a holistic security solution for Windows PCs, Mac computers and mobile Android devices. It offers additional protection for online shopping with "Secure Payments" technology and stores and synchronizes all passwords. Users thus only need to remember a single master password to access all accounts. After all, not everyone uses the Internet in the same way. Informed users can quickly and easily determine which security solution is most suitable for their needs.
