Hackers Tools and Techniques: PayPal - Term Paper Example

They also used malware to extract personal data. PayPal attempts to minimize the incidence of risk by educating and guiding the customers. They maintain a separate department engaged in checking fraud and they work in close cooperation with the ISPs, the law enforcement bodies and the technology companies to protect the interests of their customers. PayPal is the most important of all the electronic banking and commerce institutions and has the best chance of delivering secure, trusted e-commerce transactions.

It is an online transaction and bill-paying service preferred by millions of eBay auction users (Rubenking, 2003). Since eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, the electronic payments have experienced growth at a very fast pace. This has also made it a very attractive target for hackers. In the third quarter of 2004, PayPal had a payment volume of $4.6 billion (Lundquist, 2005). PayPal has 133 million users worldwide using its online payment service (Vijayan, 2007). It is an example of the micropayment system which involves transactions of very small amounts of money (Patel, Qi & Wills, 2010).

It is one of the most recognized Internet brands and is all set to lead the financial sector in transacting electronic business. However, it is also one of the most frequent targets for phishing attacks. Attackers’ motivations differ. Most often hackers are notorious high school children who are always at their computers and find newer ways to attack computer systems (Shimonski, 2002). Very often employees that have been unhappy with their employers also seek revenge and they engage in hacking the system.

There are others who just feel elated at the challenge of entering into a secure system. PayPal is the primary target by hackers for two reasons (Vijayan, 2007). PayPal has a very large customer base (133 million) and they have a simple business model that makes it easy for these 133 million users to move money between them. Thus, both PayPal and its