New research has
uncovered the massive impact on customer loyalty that can be created by a hacking incident.
The survey, which was conducted by OnePoll at the end of October, asked 1,000 people (53% female and 47% male) living in the UK, how they would react if a company they dealt with were breached.
Almost half of the 1,000
people surveyed (48%) claimed they'd cancel their account
if a service provider suffered a data breach. In addition, 35% said they
would avoid choosing a company that had been hacked in the future if they were
switching providers.
The research also found
that 45% of respondents would claim for damages if their
personal details were stolen, with a further 24% saying they would join
with others to bring a class action.
This is something that internet giant Yahoo
is already facing. Just one day after it confirmed it had suffered a data
breach, Ronald Schwartz launched a lawsuit against the company on behalf of ALL its USA based customers.
When fraudulent
transactions are made, these too have a financial impact, as Tesco Bank know only too well, having to cover the £2.5 million stolen recently from 9,000 of its customer
accounts.
Speaking about the
findings, Alex Matthews, EMEA technical manager at Positive Technologies said: “These
organisations are responsible for collecting and protecting massive amounts of
data, yet the last 12 months have proven they can fall prey to hackers.”
“TalkTalk, Yahoo, Three,
and even Tesco Bank are all respectable brands that have been compromised in
some way, with customers left feeling violated. In the end, they vote with
their feet and walk away. It takes a lot of time and money to acquire new
customers, but only seconds to lose them.”
For more details visit: