Megan Kruse, Jeff Wilbur

Author Archives: Megan Kruse, Jeff Wilbur

Online Trust Audit Finds Better Email Authentication and Encryption; Worse Privacy Statement Scores

Do you know how – or even if – your favorite retailer, or your bank, or your ISP is working to protect you? The Online Trust Alliance recognizes excellence in consumer protection, data security and responsible privacy practices. Today, we released the 10th annual Online Trust Audit & Honor Roll, covering more than 1,200 predominantly consumer-facing websites, and found that 70% of the websites we analyzed qualified for the Honor Roll. That’s the highest proportion ever, driven primarily by improvements in email authentication and session encryption.

Highlights

Overall, we found a strong move toward encryption, with 93% of sites encrypting all web sessions. Email authentication is also at record highs; 76% use both SPF and DKIM (which prevent spoofed/forged emails) and 50% have a DMARC record (which provides instruction on how to handle messages that fail authentication).

It’s not all good news, though. We also found that only 11% of organizations use mechanisms for vulnerability reporting, which allows users to report bugs and security problems. Only 6% use Certificate Authority Authorization, which limits certificate abuse. And overall privacy scores dropped compared to last year, primarily due to more stringent scoring in light of the E.U.’s General Continue reading

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month = International IoT Security and Privacy Month

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and as part of our work with the Online Trust Alliance and our Internet of Things (IoT) campaign, we think October also deserves another label… International IoT Security and Privacy Month. There are a number of significant activities and developments related to security and privacy. Here are a few highlights of what’s happening, how we are participating, and how you can get involved.