Yahoo Shopping’s comparison-shopping listings will now display ScanAlert’s Hacker Safe seal. Online shoppers will be able to make decisions about merchants based on more than pricing and ratings.

I’ve always been a cautious shopper, but, depending on the item, a few hours’ worth of research is generally more than enough for me to make up my mind.  Now new data indicates that most people take much longer – and, indeed, are taking increasing amounts of time – to make online purchasing choices.

Half of all online retailers Web sites are vulnerable to database attacks according to The Ecommerce Application Security Trends report from ScanAlert. The report examined 27,000 online merchants of all sizes.

Forty five percent of sites had serious database vulnerability such as SQL Injection and fifty percent had Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities. SQL Injection is a type of software vulnerability that allows hackers to penetrate databases to steal private information used for fraud and identity theft.