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accidental or erroneous business transactions, accidental disclosure, and erroneous or outdated software are examples for accidental actions.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

Related Articles:

What Is a Virus? How Do I Defend Against Viruses?

What are the main Online Security Threats?

What is Phishing?

Google offers targeted advertising solutions and global Internet search solutions. Google advertising revenue model includes Google AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Content Network.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising program designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisements to people at the instant the people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer.

Google AdSense

AdSense is an ad serving program which can let website publishers to earn money quick and easy by displaying relevant Google advertisement on their website’s content pages. Revenue is generated on a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis and the ads are administered by Google.

Google Content Network

The Google Network is a large group of websites and other products, such as email programs and blogs, who have partnered with Google to display AdWords ads. Advertisers have the option of running their ads on Google as well as the Google Network for no extra cost.

Amazon.com is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the internet sales revenue of runner up Staples, Inc.

Amazon Marketplace is a fixed price online market place that allows sellers to offer their goods alongside Amazon’s offerings. Buyers can purchase new and used items which sold directly by a third party via Amazon.com by using Amazon Marketplace. Amazon charges a commission rate based on the sale price, a transaction fee and a variable closing fee which is a very profitable sales strategy.

Amazon is pioneer affiliate partnership marketing. An Amazon partner website can display Amazon books directly on their website, and sends customers to the Amazon’s website when the visitor is ready to buy it. In return, Amazon pays a commission for the sale to the site owner.

eBay is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com. It is also an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. In eBay, bids can be placed at any time. This convenience increases the number of bidders. Their main sources of revenue is from fees charged to list items up, picture service fees, listing upgrade fees, final value fees and reservation fees. They charge fees to list an item. For example, for listing of regular items, eBay charges a fee which serves as a starting price. Besides, eBay also obtains it's revenue by charging a picture service fee. The first picture uploaded in its site is free but te subsequent pictures incurs fees. Other than that, eBay obtains its revenue from listing and updating fees. It provides various services to help its users to enhance their advertising or promotion of products but for a fee of course. Moreover, they also charge final value fees when there is a closing bid. If the item listed is not sold reservation fees will be charge.

What is E-commerce?

E-commerce, also known as Electronic Commerce, consist process of electronically buying and selling goods, services and information. The transactions take place over networks, mostly the Internet and other computer networks. E-commerce also can be defined as a modern business methodology to cut costs while improving the quality of goods and services and the increasing speed of service delivery, by using Internet.

History and Evolution of E-commerce

Early of 1970s, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies. One of the technologies is Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), which refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically. Besides, Electronic data interchange (EDI) was then developed in the late 1970s to improve the limitation of EFT. EDI enlarged the pool of participating company from manufacturers, retailers, services, and others.

Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979. During the 1980s, online shopping was use by auto manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. At this time, credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking were also forms of electronic commerce. The other form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system which typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.

When come to 1990s, there is a significant change for E-commerce due to the access to the internet. The internet is a global network that internet was quickly accepted in the business transaction due to its function for allows the business to search for the new market, Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet Besides, the World Wide Web that emerged in the years when the internet was liberalized rendered e-commerce both more accessible and more affordable. It enabled small business to sense for the first time the benefits that can be reaped from the technology of E-commerce.

The video below show the evolution of E-commerce

In conclusion, e-commerce today is still at its infancy. There are more businesses are using the e-commerce to conduct their business such as E-bay, Amazon and so on. Invisible shopping carts, annoyance-free assistance and no lines at the register and many more benefits awaits the future of e-commerce. There is a bright future of e-commerce due to the continuous development and invention of the technology.