E-Commerce World

Online security threats are one of the biggest challenges on the Internet nowadays. Security threats seem to be rising almost as quickly as e-shopping revenues. From phishing to pharming to hacking and cracking, electronic fraudsters are stealing identities from customers and credit card processing databases, and all parties are more than a little concerned.

The two types of attacks are non-technical and technical. Non-technical attack is an attack that uses chicanery to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise the security of network. In contrast, technical attack is using software and systems knowledge to perpetrate an attack.

The following are some major threats of online security:

1. Phishing
   

Phishing attack is relying on social engineering where it is a type of non-technical attack. It uses some ruse to trick users into revealing information or performing an action that compromises a computer or network in order to gain unauthorized access to systems or information.

2. Accidental Actions

Accidental actions contain the problems arising from lack of basic knowledge about online security concepts and it does contribute to a large number of computer security risks. Insecure information transfer may leads to the security products and information leakage. Poor password choices,

accidental or erroneous business transactions, accidental disclosure, and erroneous or outdated software are examples for accidental actions.

3. Malicious Attacks

Malicious attacks refer to the attacks that specifically aim to harm by malicious code, also known as premeditated. It includes the computer viruses, denial of service attack and distributed denial of service attack.

• Computer viruses

Viruses

Virus is a piece of software code that inserts itself into a host, including the operations systems. The virus is activated once its host program be executed and attempts to copy itself into

more program. Viruses may simply infect and spread; others do substantial damage such as deleting files or corrupting the hard drive. For example, "I LOVE YOU" virus caused over $100 million in United States damages and over $1 billion in worldwide losses.

Worms

Worm is a self-replicating software program, consuming the resources of its host in order to maintain its capable of propagating a complete working version of itself onto another machine. It uses networks to spread itself or spread through instant messages; it does infect a computer or handheld device without human intervention. Macro virus or macro worm is executed when the application object that contains the macro is opened or a particular procedure is executed. Examples of worms include

Trojan horses

A program that appears to have useful function but contains a hidden function which presents a security risk is known as Trojan horse. Trojan horse is unlike a worm, it requires user cooperation. Once on your machine, Trojans then function as independent programs that operate secretly. Commonly, Trojans steal passwords or perform "denial of service" attacks. Examples of Trojans include Backdoor and Nuker.

• Denial of service (DOS) and distributed denial of services (DDOS)

DOS refers to an attack on a web site in which an attacker uses specialized software to send a flood of data packets to the targeted computer with the aim of overloading its resources.

Online threats also include the identity theft and data theft. Personal identity theft on the Internet is the newest form. In the online world, electronic commerce information can be intercepted as a result of vulnerabilities in computer security. Thieves can then take this information and do with it what they will. Data theft is the term used to describe not only the theft of information but also unauthorized perusal or manipulation of private data.

There is variety of solutions to protect our online data such as password protection, trusted anti-spyware or anti-virus program and the list goes on. If you know how you become vulnerable, you will be able to protect yourself better and get surf net without constantly worrying about online the security threats.

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