Amazon security alert?

jubilee12

This isn't exactly a moneysaving question, but it could lose Amazon customers a lot of money if I've spotted a universal problem!

As far as I can tell, the Amazon UK site is not secure. When an order has been placed and the customer is logged out, it is possible to retrieve the page where the order was made, using the "back" button.

When I raised this query with their customer services helpline last week, I was told that this "did not matter" because most of the account details are encrypted.

In my view, this isn't satisfactory because 1)another computer user could still gain access to the rest of your personal information and 2) if someone is using a credit or debit card for the first time, all of their card details can be retrieved.

Of course, you can erase your history of the page. But this is not the standard for secure pages (and I'm not sure it is possible to erase this information permanently from your own computer).

I still haven't received a reply from Amazon UK. A survey of friends and family suggests this is a general problem rather than an issue with my computer.

Has anyone else encountered this? Can any techies out there tell me if I am overreacting to a harmless issue?
Many thanks

normanmark

Yep you're overreacting

jubilee12

Can you talk me through why, please?

mrJ_5

just close the browser window, then re-open it... you can't go back then...

you can use the back button with many online services, but as soon as you try a link on that page, it shouldn't load anything with your details in it, infact, if you logged off properly, you should be askd to log back in...

phildamb

jubilee12 wrote: »

This isn't exactly a moneysaving question, but it could lose Amazon customers a lot of money if I've spotted a universal problem!

As far as I can tell, the Amazon UK site is not secure. When an order has been placed and the customer is logged out, it is possible to retrieve the page where the order was made, using the "back" button.

When I raised this query with their customer services helpline last week, I was told that this "did not matter" because most of the account details are encrypted.

In my view, this isn't satisfactory because 1)another computer user could still gain access to the rest of your personal information and 2) if someone is using a credit or debit card for the first time, all of their card details can be retrieved.

Of course, you can erase your history of the page. But this is not the standard for secure pages (and I'm not sure it is possible to erase this information permanently from your own computer).

I still haven't received a reply from Amazon UK. A survey of friends and family suggests this is a general problem rather than an issue with my computer.

Has anyone else encountered this? Can any techies out there tell me if I am overreacting to a harmless issue?
Many thanks

This is what I refer to as technological paranoia. The CC details are encrypted and even though they are stored on the site you will find that once the session has completed a person cannot simply open up the local cache and find your card details. The transmissions between your machine and their servers are encrypted and this is a requirement for the certificate that amazon display. You will also find that the pages cant really be stored locally as they are generated by the server when they are requrested and the page with your card details isnt like a text page with all the numbers written on it. When ever you hear about peoples card details being stolen off a website its not yet happened by a criminal hitting the back button on your browser. It will generally be by a grevious breach of security on the vendors https based server. Only one website ever have I had problems with and that was ebuyer.com and that was due to one of their employees giving my card details to someone so they could buy themselves a nice plasma tv!

jubilee12

Thank you for explaining that so clearly, that is very helpful.