Massive shifts in consumer adoption of e-commerce as a shopping channel have put pressure on retailers to improve the online customer experience. The digital storefront is the primary way for consumers to discover, shop and interact with brands. And consumers expect their online interactions to be as frictionless as possible. But this recent spike in traffic brings increased risk as cybercriminals steal personal information, empty gift cards, use bots to buy inventory for resale and take over consumer accounts. Uriel Maimon, senior director of emerging technologies at PerimeterX, shared insights with Digital Commerce 360 about how retailers can start putting cybersecurity on equal footing with customer experience.

What current cyber security trends are impacting customer experience?

One of the most important trends today is the growth of limited edition releases and hype sales, and the challenges loyal customers have buying these coveted items. Bot operators target these sales for products like sneakers, gaming consoles, fashion accessories, and collectible cards and coins, then turn around and resell these items in secondary markets for large markups.

By quickly snatching up inventory, bots prevent human users from completing their purchases and disrupt a website’s intended user flow. Many sites are under-equipped to mitigate this threat because these bots are increasingly sophisticated and highly tuned by attackers to evade defenses. Even reCAPTCHA challenges can be ineffective at curbing these types of bots. To make matters worse, many of these reCAPTCHA challenges have become prohibitively difficult for humans to solve— frustrating customers and leading to damaged brand reputations.

What other effects have user verifications, such as CAPTCHA, had on customer experience?

Long-standing user verifications, such as CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, negatively impact customer experience. First, they disrupt the customer’s path on the site, and second, they have become more challenging (Read more...)