Posted on November 27th, 2011
A screenshot of Panopta's holiday monitoring website
As Thanksgiving gets closer, security and monitoring firms are doing their job by providing online shopping tips to customers, as well as tools to e-commerce websites that will help them create a safe shopping environment and prevent online threats.
Comodo (http://www.comodo.com/), an internet security service, published seven questions online, on Wednesday, for consumers who would help them better understand and keep them aware of malware, and guide them on shopping for smartphones and tablets.
Comodo CEO and chief security architect, Melih Abdulhayoglu stated, “many of us have learned the steps to take in order to make the holidays run smoother, but in 2011, making sure you shop safely online and prevent malware from infecting your newly purchased electronic devices is more important than finding the best time to avoid the crowds at the mall.”
According to Comodo, customers should be careful with the PC they are using for online purchases and also raise questions for companies, regarding malware prevention, when shopping for gifts like tablets, e-readers and smartphones.
Comodo also said, it is important for customers to update version of their security software and should not click on links unless they are safe and must not open any greeting emails unless they are sure of the sender’s identity.
Abdulhayoglu stated, “the holidays are a prime time for people to purchase electronic devices as gifts for loved ones and it is especially important that every device is properly secured against potential malware attacks.” “The rate at which new malware is coming on the market is staggering and it is imperative that users ask themselves these very simple questions to help avoid a malware infection and the massive headache that comes along with it.”
Equinix (http://www.equinix.com/), data center and Compuware (http://www.compuware.com/), technology performance support firm has teamed up to create an online tool that will help e-commerce sites monitor their performance during the holiday season. The tool performs an online test and will measure a site’s performance against its competitors and other leading websites, and email daily reports. The tool can be found here.
“Research shows that 40 percent of consumers will not wait more than three seconds for a page to load before leaving a website, and this expectation is only increasing,” Chris Sharp, general manager of content and digital media at Equinix said in a statement. “In fact, delays of only several milliseconds can frustrate some visitors enough to drive them away before they become customers. At Equinix, we are committed to helping ecommerce and digital media companies on Platform Equinix to not only scale quickly and avoid downtime, but also achieve better site performance and thus drive revenue for their business. This becomes particularly important during the busy Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days when consumers are particularly eager to get in on the best deals.”
Panopta (http://www.panopta.com/), a website monitor, has come up with a tool, which monitors many well known shopping websites and displays their performance in real time. The tool also shows sites that have experienced downtime recently and the time they took to get back again. The results are also displayed in chart form, with the company logo beside, which helps users locate their desired site easily.