E commerce and its security considerations

Security issues and threats in an e-commerce environment are varied and can be caused intentionally. Security issues and threats related to an e-commerce environment can be categorized as many  types  controllable, partially controllable, and uncontrollable. Security threats on the Internet include Spoofing, Unauthorized disclosure, Unauthorized action, Data alteration etc. Spoofing is the copying of legitimate webpages by those with criminal intentions to create seemingly legitimate websites for the sole purpose of gathering private information like credit card numbers, social security numbers and so on. In Unauthorized disclosure  When transactions are conducted over the Internet on unsecured sites, hackers can intercept transmissions and gain access to our customer’s sensitive data. Anyone with a grudge against us can alter your site to deny access to customers in Unauthorized action and the other one id the data alteration. Here. Hackers can alter transaction contents as they flow across the internet resulting in mixed, incomplete, or incorrect messages being sent back and forth from our site to your customer and vice versa.

There include many guidelines that identify various security issues and threats in an e-commerce environment and then offers a comprehensive security plan and guidelines for recovery if disaster strikes. Creating security awareness, employees and key decision-makers first should understand what security is and  also why is it important to create and implement a comprehensive security program in an e-commerce environment.  Formation of the security task force, key employees and decision-makers have to be involved in the design and implementation of a security program. In which a buy-in process and sense of ownership have to be created at the early stages of the security program design and implementation. Next one is the Conducting risk analysis. Here the information should be considered as a commodity with a value attached to it. Means more/less financial analysis and capital budgeting techniques could be applied to this process. Identification of basic security safeguards is considered as one of the main guideline. The most basic security safeguards that have to be in place in any security program development include the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID), and mirror disks.

Identification of general security threats, intentional threats, security measures and enforcements, computer emergency response team services are the other guidelines. In the Identification of general security threats, natural and human created disasters as they apply to an e-commerce environment have to be identified and in the Identification of intentional threats, the computer viruses, worms, Trojan horse programs, and other intentional threats must be identified. Formation of a comprehensive security plan should be effective inorder to make a security plan which should include should include hardware, software, and policy measures that collectively protect the information resources of an ecommerce site. An organization must be prepared to respond to a disaster if it occurs. One of the best security measures is to plan for disaster and here the response process known as thedisaster recovery planning or contingency planning system can play a major role in putting the organization back on its feet. For more