How secure are online retailers?

With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season on the horizon, many people are going to be shopping online. But how much do you trust the sites you’re dealing with?

Password management company LastPass has released a report looking at each site's password requirements, how much information they store, and how much effort they put into helping customers follow good password security practices.

It has identified the top online retailers based on e-commerce sales in 2015 and analyzed each website on a set of six criteria. It then ranks each on a scale of zero to 10 points, depending on how well those criteria were met. Each retailer is given an overall ranking based on their password requirements, how much information they store, and how much effort they put into encouraging good password security.

The results are surprising, with one of the largest online retailers, Amazon, ranking amongst the lowest for account security. You can see the best and worst sites in the infographic below. Among the things that make sites more secure are having complex password requirements. The top five sites also feature a password strength meter so users can see how effective their choices are.

LastPass also recommends storing as little information as possible in your profile so there's less for hackers to steal in the event of a breach. Even the most secure sites identified have some way to go, however, with none of them offering two-factor authentication.

You can find out more about the findings on the LastPass blog and in the graphic below.

Photo Credit: Nonnakrit/Shutterstock