Consumer cybersecurity in e-commerce

The widespread use of the internet has led to the emergence of a new business model, electronic commerce. Companies use internet tools to provide personalized services to their customers and market their products to target audiences more effectively. E commerce is a trade model where goods and services are bought and sold electronically. With the increasing number of online purchases, e-commerce has rapidly grown into a booming sector. E-commerce offers consumers an easy and fast shopping experience, while providing businesses with lower operating costs and a wider customer base. However, the widespread adoption of e-commerce has led to the emergence of new risks related to cybersecurity. E-commerce businesses face many threats, such as cybercriminals seizing customers' personal and financial information while storing this information. Therefore, cybersecurity is critical to e-commerce businesses. Consumers are exposed to various cyberattacks while shopping online, such as phishing, third-party breaches, unwanted spam emails, malware, data theft, and other cybersecurity threats. These cybersecurity threats have serious consequences for both consumers and businesses. The theft of consumers' personal and financial information leads to financial losses and loss of trust. On the other hand, the loss of reputation of e-commerce businesses also leads to customer losses and potential financial losses. Therefore, e-commerce businesses must take cybersecurity measures and use security protocols, encryption technologies, and other cybersecurity tools to protect their customers' data. E-commerce businesses and consumers need to take necessary precautions to ensure cybersecurity and information security. E-commerce businesses should use cybersecurity technologies and tools to provide a secure shopping experience. Additionally, laws aimed at protecting consumers' information security are important in terms of ensuring confidentiality, preventing cybercriminals from accessing this information, and preventing its use for malicious purposes. These factors are important for consumer confidence in the e-commerce environment because trust affects purchasing intention. In conclusion, in today's world where cyber threats are increasing, it is necessary to ensure cybersecurity by taking effective measures to eliminate consumers' concerns about e-commerce and create a safe shopping environment. Within the scope of this study, the effects of privacy (the use of personal data for other purposes, confidentiality of personal data, websites knowing/tracking other websites, and sharing personal information with other parties), security (security measures taken by e-commerce websites to protect their customers, authentication capabilities, and protection against unauthorized modification or theft of information during transactions), financial (fears of money being stolen by sharing personal data online, fear of bank account numbers being used for online shopping, fear of credit card information being used for online shopping, fear of someone shopping online in their name, fear of someone using personal data to shop online, fear of credit card numbers xvii being misused when provided for online shopping, fear of bank account numbers being misused when provided for online shopping, fear of a stranger accessing personal data during online shopping), technical (digital signature feature offered by e-commerce websites, mechanisms preventing unauthorized modification of consumer data, and preventing unauthorized monitoring of messages between parties by e-commerce websites), and legal protection (the adequacy of current laws in Turkey to protect consumers' online privacy, the existence of binding laws to protect individuals' personal information in online shopping, and consumers being adequately protected against online privacy breaches) variables on consumer trust and subsequent purchase intentions have been investigated. The data for the study were collected via an online survey, in line with the scope and subject of the study. 348 people participated in the survey; however, 31 of them (8.9%) were unable to participate in the survey because they did not approve the voluntary participation form. As a result, 317 valid surveys were obtained for use in the analyses. The results were reported by creating descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling with the data obtained from the participants. According to the findings, privacy policies presented to consumers are insufficient to ensure consumer trust, perceived financial risks negatively affect consumer trust, security and technical measures taken by e-commerce websites positively affect consumer trust, knowledge and awareness of the legal framework related to cyber risks positively affect trust, and as a result, the trust formed in consumers positively affects their purchase intentions. Accordingly, various recommendations for ensuring consumer cybersecurity in e-commerce are presented in this study. It is believed that this study will have significant benefits for e-commerce businesses in ensuring consumer privacy and security.