Nearly a quarter of Americans have at least temporarily stopped buying online because of security concerns, according to a USA Today survey. 

Public awareness of Internet security breaches at eBay, Target and other large companies appears to be driving the decline in online shopping.

Twenty-four percent of those surveyed said they had stopped buying anything online in recent weeks because they were concerned about the safety of information they might put online, USA Today reported.

Internet shoppers (56% of those polled) also were cutting back on the number of sites they were using and going to large, well-known companies they thought were safe.

 Additionally, Internet shoppers (55%) were keeping a closer eye on their accounts because of security concerns.

Cameron Camp, a security expert with ESET, a San Diego-based security and antivirus company, predicted the behavior may not last. 

"It's kind of like being a on a diet," Camp said. "You're on good behavior for awhile and then you return to whatever you were doing before."

The poll of 790 internet users was conducted May 29-June 1 by Princeton Survey Research, with a margin of error of +/- four percentage points.

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