Building digital trust in an organization

Providing payment information — *MR.TANAPAT PHUENGPAK / iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images*

The rise of social engineering attacks such as phishing, as well as new technology such as artificial intelligence, has led to a lack of trust in organizations. Consumers want to know that their personal information is safe, meaning they might pull away from organizations they deem untrustworthy.

ISACA released the results of its digital trust survey. Digital trust, as defined by ISACA, “is the confidence in the integrity of the relationships, interactions and transactions among providers and consumers within an associated digital ecosystem.” The report talks about the various times in which consumers have to decide to trust an organization, including:

Receiving and opening emails from the company
Accepting website cookies
Providing personal information (email, phone number, etc.)
Downloading a mobile app
Providing payment information

The survey found that while people understood digital trust as a concept, they sometimes struggled to define digital trust as a term.

According to the report, while 84% of respondents feel that digital trust is extremely/very important to organizations today, and 75% feel it is relevant to their organization, 64% say their organization prioritizes digital trust corresponding to its level of importance. The financial sector, military and technology services ranked digital trust as highly important.

The way a company responds to an incident often has a direct effect on consumer trust. Methods for tracking customer digital trust included customer satisfaction surveys, common customer service issues and customer retention.

According to the survey, 13% of organizations have a staff role dedicated to digital trust. However, when the board of directors of an organization prioritizes digital trust, the existence of a dedicated staff role increases to 46%. Organizations that prioritize digital trust gain more trust from their consumers.

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Taelor Sutherland is the Associate Editor at Security magazine. Sutherland covers news affecting enterprise security leaders, from industry events to physical & cybersecurity threats and mitigation tactics. She is also responsible for coordinating and publishing web exclusives, multimedia content, social media posts, and a number of eMagazine departments. Sutherland graduated in 2022 with a BA in English Literature from Agnes Scott College.