Online shoppers might have a credit card number stolen while buying Christmas gifts today and not learn about it until Easter, an industry authority on computer virus prevention said.
“They’re waiting for you to enter your credit card number,” said David Perry, global director of education for Trend Micro. “Then they’re collected up and sold. They steal them by the thousands and resell them in batches on secret sites.”
At least 25 percent of Web sites are infected (with problems),” he said, “and one-third of computers are affected.
Today, though, 58.5 percent of consumers shop online because of the convenience, according to the National Retail Federation.
Barbie Potts of Hixson said she has bought the majority of Christmas gifts in person but has bought “a few things,” she can’t get in Chattanooga online. She said to her knowledge she has never had any of her information pirated.
“I don’t (worry about it),” she said. “Nothing ever happened. I probably should worry.”
Mr. Perry represents Trend Micro, a computer antivirus software company in Cupertino, Calif., but he wants to save people from joining the list of what he said is approaching 100 billion cyber crimes annually.
The most important thing for people to do, he said, is to make your computer free of malware, short for malicious software. Malware is a program or file, such as a virus, worm or a Trojan horse, that is designed specifically to damage or disrupt a system.
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