EW September 2016

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Transatlantic cable
September 2016 39
When the rst full production model of the two-seater becomes
available, in 2018, it will not be o ered for sale. Instead,
customers will pay a monthly fee that covers fuel, maintenance,
repairs and insurance on the car. This arrangement, says
Riversimple, promises a trouble-free experience for the driver;
and, for the vehicle that remains the property of the maker, an
extended life in service.
Cybersecurity
Survey nds consumers are dissatis ed with
how companies handle breaches and inclined
to cut their ties with a hacked organisation
The results of a recent study of consumer attitudes should go
some way toward persuading corporations that cybersecurity
breaches should be high on their list of concerns.
Commissioned by the security rm Centrify (Sunnyvale,
California), the online study, which surveyed 2,400 people
across the USA, Britain and Germany, found that 66 per cent
of American adults are at least somewhat likely to stop doing
business with a company that has su ered a cyberbreach. Even
more Britons (75 per cent) said they are somewhat likely to stop
doing business after a hack.
Centrify, which claims a customer base of over 5,000, including
more than half of the Fortune 500 companies (representing
two-thirds of USA GDP), also found that most consumers believe
the accountability for hacking incidents rests almost entirely
with the businesses. About two-thirds of respondents in all three
countries surveyed placed a high burden of responsibility on
corporations (nine or ten on a ten-point scale) in terms of how
proactive they ought to be in preventing hacks and securing the
personal data of their customers.
What is more, many of the respondents (41 per cent in the
USA, 50 per cent in Britain, 38 per cent in Germany) said they
are extremely likely to hold corporations fully responsible for
preventing such incursions. Signi cant percentages hold that
corporations do not accept enough blame for a breach when it
does occur.
While most of the respondents believe that businesses and
large organisations are likely hacker targets, this was not seen as
relieving those entities of the obligation to protect themselves.
The study found 21 per cent of USA consumers very likely to
stop patronising a business known to have been hacked.
Centrify found that the people most likely to take their business
elsewhere are those who have had their personal information
compromised in a hack, those who are tech savvy, and those
who are frequent online shoppers.
† Because companies generally are loath to publicise a hack of
their customers’ information, executive-suite awareness of
the extent of the problem is di cult to gauge.
But the attitudes uncovered by the Centrify survey should
go some way toward persuading businesses to step up their
cybersecurity game.
Dorothy Fabian
USA Editor