Liberty president Michael Barrett told ComputerWire consumers do not regard the internet as unsafe. Far from being tainted by Passport’s recent difficulties, Barrett believes systems that implement Liberty’s evolving specifications will be well received by consumers.
Barrett was speaking after analyst Garter last week observed that the problem of a recently discovered backdoor for hackers in Passport also dealt a major blow to Liberty.
Consumers and enterprises have already seen more risk than value in Passport or Liberty, analysts wrote in a recent report. Gartner advised companies using Passport for any meaningful business purpose to break links to the service and those considering Passport to shelve their plans for six months.
More vulnerabilities will likely surface in Passport, Gartner said.
The Passport incident rumbled on last week with publication of a Giga Information Report revealing 250 accounts out of a total 200m were compromised by the back door.
When news of the back door broke, Microsoft said it was unaware of any breaches. On Friday, a company spokesperson told ComputerWire that there hadn’t been any reports of an exposed Passport account being used for unauthorized transactions.
While Microsoft defended Passport, Liberty took steps to distance itself from both the security debacle and Passport.
Barrett, also vice president of Internet strategy for American Express, said his company’s customers continued to use services such as online stock trading with confidence. Some companies have security issues with their products but consumers don’t think the internet is unsafe, Barrett said.
Consumers do understand the difference between companies and products and services.
Source: Computerwire
