Ebay Chief Executive Meg Whitman on Thursday said increasingly sophisticated Internet scams were eroding the trust of online shoppers and hurting e-commerce.
She also called on industry leaders to work together more closely at a time when legitimate businesses must thwart global criminal organizations vying for control over sensitive financial data traveling across the Internet.
Whitman, who was speaking at a security conference sponsored by Visa USA, said she planned to meet this afternoon with lawmakers, whom she declined to identify, to discuss the issue.
"Security on the Net is actually an arms race in its most classic form," she said. "As we build sophisticated tools and fraud models to keep the bad guys out, the bad guys just come up with new ways to target us."
Whitman said a particularly vexing challenge is safeguarding Internet users from "phishers," who try to obtain sensitive personal information by masquerading as a trusted Web site or e-mailer. These scams, Whitman said, are eroding the trust of Internet shoppers and hurting e-commerce.
While the company has developed some new technologies to thwart phishers and other Internet scams, she said there is no single solution. One measure that would help protect businesses and consumers, she added, is more collaboration among e-commerce companies, Internet service providers, software companies and banks.
Shares of Ebay rose 36 cents to $31.39 in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
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