E-Commerce and the Internet

The Internet has become a vast marketplace for global goods and services. For e-commerce to proper, consumers must feel safe when transmitting credit card and other financial information. Because data traveling over the network actually passes through many computers along the way, the opportunity exists for someone to intercept confidential information. With the tremendous potential for doing business online, there’s a lot of time and money being spent trying to make Internet transactions secure. E-mail, e-commerce, online transactions, web-based catalogs, has connected desktops, laptops, and businesses to the world. These applications and the Internet have also connected the world to us. However, this virtual world includes numerous threats to our security, and security of the information housed on our computers. External threats include automated programs that are constantly probing the Internet for vulnerabilities through which they can enter a network and its computers. Internal threats include disgruntled former employees who may access to your network, compromised or poorly protected passwords, out-of-date security programs and new technologies introduced without proper protection. In such a constant-threat environment, it is vital that organizations and consumers protect themselves.

The first step to implementing computer security is to define the scope of the threats and problems. The scope of the security problems and challenges can be intimidating. The scope includes viruses, such as the Trojan horse, worms, and spyware. There are a few techniques for creating a safe e-community. They include the following:

 Use only licensed software acquired from reliable vendors

 Test all new software on an isolated computer

 Only open attachments only when you know them to be safe

 Make a recoverable system image and store it safely

 Make a retain backup copies of executable system files (i.e. Disaster Recovery)

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