Attention shoppers, the mall will be closing in, well, never. The times are changing, and consumerism is far from waning. Your local brick and mortar shops are struggling to keep their doors open; meanwhile, online commerce continues to grow at an alarming rate.
In the UK, for instance, online retailers saw sales nearly double the week before Christmas 2011 when compared to the same week one year prior, according to MetaPack. Similarly, e-commerce revenue continues to see exponential growth as online shopping grows. Total revenue in 1996 was $600 million, compared to roughly $680 billion in 2011, and climbing to an estimated trillion plus dollars by 2014 (Techcrunch).
Whilst online retailers gleefully reap the benefits of these numbers, another kind of beneficiary watches from the shadows of the Internet. We’re talking about “cybercriminals”, and they aren’t looking at numbers, but rather the increasingly large flow of money being exchanged between individuals and their trusted servers. These are modern day pickpockets, and they’re here to stay.
Be sure to check back here tomorrow for Part 2 of our Pickpocket Series.
