Academic Paper Review - Assignment Example

Information Security E-commerce Security Exchanging of information and financial transactions in procuring goods and services by using the internet is referred to as e-commerce activity. In order to progress their businesses, distributors, suppliers and manufacturers interact by using an e-commerce system. Many organizations in the modern world of technological developments have a noticeable presence on the internet. There are several brands that do not need to ascertain their prosperous market presence.

The commonly used e-commerce form was limited to procuring goods and services online whereby consumers ordered these goods online and received the goods and services at their homes. In addition, consumers can also purchase these commodities by using online transactions. This paper will look on the various security issues relating to e-commerce system (Al-Slamy, 2008). Apart from hardware or physical damages threats, e-commerce system is seriously influenced by the perils associated with its software and technical mechanism.

The software and technical mechanism rely on three security components. The security concept entails three vital components including availability, integrity and confidentiality (McKegney & Khusial, 2005). Authorized individuals are permitted to access the highly confidential data and information connected to consumers. Leaking this confidential information to an unauthorized individual is breaching confidentiality. Data integrity is safeguarded by preserving the precise information contained in it even though the integrity may be violated by adding more payment demands in statements and bills (Gollmann, 2000).

Availability makes sure that access to resources is safe and incase of any delays, availability may be influenced negatively. The main security features of e-commerce system include authorization, auditing, authentication and encryption. Encryption is created in enhancing maximum security measures by preserving private information (McKegney & Khusial, 2005). It prevents unauthorized individuals from accessing financial transactions occurring on the internet. Authentication is the act of making sure that a user retrieving information from the system is the same one and prevents unauthorized users from the log in.

Another security feature is auditing. It is used by businesses in keeping online transaction records. This information is used by companies in proving the validity of transactions. In addition, authorization is taking command over personal resources found online and manipulating them through an exact mechanism. This enables people to track their invoice system and account balances with no hassle (Furnell, 2006). There are different security issues that affect e-commerce. Making a web based transactions to be safe is the main problem that progresses activities on the internet.

By implementing secure internet solutions in protecting an e-commerce system, it may have potential financial benefits. E-commerce systems are mainly affected by computer viruses and Trojan horses, which are the critical threat to transactions done online (McKegney & Khusial, 2005). Due to technology advancement, hackers access easily to online transactions. Another problem is network sniffing whereby the private information of the user is stolen by checking data exchange between the user’s server and system (Al-Slamy, 2008).

The other problem is denial of service attack whereby hackers compel servers by suing excessive computational resources. In conclusion, despite various security issues associated with online transactions, it is a sustainable way of conducting business worldwide. In making online transactions safer, businesses can employ tough password policies in making sure there is maximum protection. Organizations need to install firewalls to limit the traffic directed to the computer and confidential information needs to be encrypted.

Computer users need to be educated on the importance of using strong passwords. In maximizing security, organizations need to use encrypting streams that have Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol (McKegney & Khusial, 2005). References Al-Slamy, D. N. M. (2008). E-Commerce security. IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 8(5), 340-344.Furnell, S. (2006). E-commerce security. Enterprise information systems assurance and systems security, 131-147.Gollmann, D. (2000).

E-commerce security. Computing & Control Engineering Journal, 11(3), 115-118.McKegney, R., & Khusial, D. (2005, April 13). E-commerce security: Attacks and Preventive strategies. Developer works. Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0504_mckegney/0504_mckegney.html?ca=drs