E-Commerce Security Analysis

This assignment delves into the critical topic of e-commerce security. It requires a thorough examination of various security threats that e-commerce platforms face, including data breaches, phishing attacks, malware, and fraudulent transactions. Students are expected to identify vulnerabilities and propose effective solutions to enhance the security of e-commerce systems. The analysis should encompass technical measures like encryption and firewalls, as well as organizational practices such as robust authentication protocols and user education.

Running head: E-COMMERCE SECURITY
E-Commerce Security
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Project Overview........................................................................................................................1
Problem Overview.....................................................................................................................2
Understanding of Research Issues.............................................................................................3
Related Work and Proposed Solutions by Authors to Address Research Issues.......................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
E-commerce or the electronic commerce is the technique by which the various kinds
of commodities and goods are sold by retailers and those goods are bought by the customers
over the Internet. The entire transaction of goods is conducted over the Internet along with
the transaction of money. There are multiple alternatives to pay for the commodities over the
e-commerce site and online payment is one of the alternatives (Brannen, 2017). However,
security is the major concern associated with the online payment. The reason for choosing
this topic is to highlight the necessity to secure the online money transaction so that the
customers can enjoy a hassle-free secure service. The report will showcase the security
measures by which the security of the e-commerce site can be established.
Project Overview
The e-commerce site is developed keeping in mind the individual customers as well
as the corporate customers, this help in conducting the business operations and transaction of
goods in large volumes. The e-commerce provides various kinds of facilities like non-cash
payment, the customers do not have to pay in cash, and they can simply choose to pay via
debit card, credit card and via online banking (Creswell, 2013). The customers can get the
facility to provide 24x7 services, they can shop at their convenient times, can shop on the go.
The online retail stores provide better support to the customers; the customers can keep in
touch with the e-commerce industry all the time and get solutions to all their queries. Thus
security and privacy are important. The e-commerce giants like Amazon, eBay invests heavy
on these e-commerce websites for ensuring the privacy of the customers and the security of
the website as well as the company. There is a high risk of security breaches due to the cyber-
attacks from the hackers. Thus it is absolute necessity to implement security features to theses
websites (Ghosh, 2012).

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This report will focus on to research the security measures by which the personal
sensitive information can be protected and secured. The technology that is used in the e-
commerce websites is Secure socket layer (SSL), https, HTTP and Secure hypertext transfer
protocol (SHTTP). Secure Socket Layer is widely used convention and is used to conduct the
business operations securely and effectively. It is known to provide the security features-
non-reputability, validation, encryption and trustworthiness (Davies & Hughes, 2014). The
https is used for HTTP URLs along with SSL whereas HTTP is used for HTTP URLs and not
along with SSL. The Secure hypertext transfer protocol caters secure transactions over the
Internet. It assists in authentication of the client by implementing encryption method. SHTTP
is incorporated into browsers to cater the routine security over the Internet.
Problem Overview
The security issue is the main concern for all the online retailers. The intruders can
attack the system and make the system and the database of the e-commerce companies and
hack the sensitive data of the company, the financial data and the personal details of the
customers. If the customers' data gets breached then the data, the privacy of the customers
will get compromised. The e-commerce sites can face huge loss, they can even lose the
customers’ base. The cyber attackers generally carry out the malicious activities by
incorporating virus in the system of the e-commerce server, by taking control over the
insecure network of the e-retailers (Aven, 2015). Trojan horse and the logic bombs are two
kinds of threats and take away the sensitive information of the system and the database.
Another kind of threat is Denial of Service Attacks and this attack is responsible to take
control of one’ system and disallow the owner to access their own system. This attack is also
responsible to shut down one's server and one's system. Another popular attack is a phishing
attack.

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The cyber attackers develop a website which is genuine e-commerce website's
lookalike. They simply copy the HTML code and carry out the attack. Besides those threats
discussed, there are vulnerabilities too (Lampard & Pole, 2015). The vulnerabilities incur due
to the attack from the SQL injection, cross-site scripting, customers choosing weak
passwords and lots more. The security measures must be applied to mitigate these aforesaid
threats and the vulnerabilities related to e-commerce.
Understanding of Research Issues
The research is based on the three questionnaires- what are the primary security
concerns of an e-commerce site, what is the necessity to secure the e-commerce site, what are
the ethical issues associated with the e-commerce security (Laudon & Traver, 2013).
Therefore, the privacy and security, technology related attacks and the ethical issues that will
be focused and is the area of research.
Security and Privacy: The customers will have to be concerned about the security and
privacy. The theft of the customers’ credentials is the area of concern (Morgan, 2013). The
retail industry contains all the personal details of the customers, they also have the bank card
details as well, thus the question arises if those sensitive data got breached then the privacy
and security of the customers will get threatened.
Technology related attacks: The cyber-attack on the e-commerce is carried out by
brute force attack, denial of service attack (DDoS), ICMP flood.
Ethical issues: The ethical issues are associated with the data mining procedures. The
retailers must use the customers’ data efficiently and should be attentive that it does not hurt
any customers or does not make any negative impact on the customers’ personal life
(Segovia, Szczepaniak & Niedzwiedzinski, 2013). Also, if those data get breached then the

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retailers can be in trouble, they will lose customers' base, they will lose the reputation and
ultimately they will face a huge loss.
The customers must be attentive and should limit their personal data usage. They have
also the right not to share the personal information at all. In this way, they can protect the
data from getting breached (Time, 2012). On the other hand, if the data are to be used, they
must be used ethically and effectively keeping in mind the security and privacy of the
customers.
Related Work and Proposed Solutions by Authors to Address Research Issues
The twelve articles or twelve related works will be highlighted and along with that,
the proposals of various authors in regards to security measures of the e-commerce website
will be discussed via these twelve articles.
The first article details the techniques and the procedures via which the e-commerce
websites can be protected and secured. The two models have been discussed the first one is
the oriented authorization model and the second one is the oriented authentication model. The
oriented authentication model is responsible to protect the e-commerce system from the brute
force attack, replay attack and the data sniffing attack (Rane et al., 2012). The authorization
model deals with the session hijacking and the bypassing authorization attacks, replay
attacks, ID spoofing. The oriented authorization model is also on the basis of providing the
customer's permission about accessing the data. Thus it can be concluded that the
authentication and authorization are important for the enhancement of the e-commerce
activities.
The second article focuses on the cryptography technique by which the websites can
be protected. This article showcases an algorithm which is fast as well as strong via which the

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security of the website can be ensured (Maqableh, 2012). The article has proposed about the
cryptography that involves the hash functions, that also involves the pseudorandom number
generation. HTTPs, SSL and SET protocols have been showcased in the article as well. The
e-commerce website if properly encrypted significant benefits can be achieved.
The third article demonstrates about the malware and the virus threat that can make
any company’s system and database vulnerable. The dangerous among them is the Trojan
Horse. The Trojan Horse is responsible to block and is responsible to bypass any type of
authentication and authorization techniques (Niranjanamurthy & Chahar, 2013). The online
retail industry has numerous phases and they mainly deal with the delivery phase, the
information, the payment phase and the negotiation phase. The phases defined above have
various kinds of security measures, various kinds of encryption procedures and various kinds
of integrity checks. The article has highlighted the DDoS attacks, unauthorized attacks and
the data fraud and the data theft. The article has grandstand on how individuals can protect
themselves from all kinds of security breaches.
The fourth article highlights the pros and cons of the M-commerce and the e-
commerce respectively. The pros are related to the security aspects of the e-commerce sites.
The article discusses the credit card related frauds and how one should stay safe from the
hackers and data fraud, data theft and the phishing attacks. The security measures which
probably can protect them from all kinds of security breaches have been discussed in the
article and the security measures are authentication, encryption, non-repudiation and
unauthorized access (Niranjanamurthy et al., 2013). The attackers can gain entry to one's
system unethically and can modify and delete the data thus the e-commerce sites must be
made secure.

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The fifth article showcases that the online shopping must be conducted in a safe and
secure manner, the digital certificate, strong passwords and the secured public key
infrastructure. The e-commerce life cycle has been elaborated in the article as well.
According to the author, there should be a mutual trust in running the business operations.
DDoS has been highlighted as the most disastrous threat. A security framework must be built
to ensure security and safety of the e-commerce website. Nowadays all the customers are
very much inclined towards the online shopping and the demand is rising (Revathi, Shanthi &
Saranya, 2015). This protecting the website from all kinds of breaches is the need of the hour.
Along with that the confidentiality, privacy and the availability must be maintained.
The sixth article showcases that the e-commerce applications can be downloaded to
the smartphone and the same kind of effective service can be enjoyed over the phone. The
utility of e-commerce apps has been showcased. The flaws have been highlighted as well.
The flaws are basically associated with encryption and GPRS authentication. The protocols
related with authentication have been discussed along with the encryption mechanisms
(Prakash, 2015). The m-commerce activities are increasing and becoming more demanding
day by day thus the security measures must be taken into consideration.
The seventh article also focuses on the network security issues. According to the
article, a well-secured framework model must have the data confidentiality, data integrity and
the authentication. The threats which can prove disastrous to the e-commerce websites are
unauthorised access, data theft, data fraud, spamming and the DDoS attack (Gautam & Singh,
2014). There are also vulnerabilities that have been discussed and along with that risks
occurring due to the casualties of the customers have been highlighted.
The eighth article has elaborated the various kinds of business operations that the e-
commerce industry works on. The author of this article has proposed the server side security

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model, the client-side security model and also proposed that the data must be transacted in a
secured manner (Rane & Meshram, 2012). The database module is associated with the
watermarking, encryption of data and the digital signature.
The ninth article highlights that the e-commerce websites can be secured only by
cryptography techniques. The monetary transaction must be made secure by applying security
models and the cryptographic techniques. The transactions related to e-commerce contains
various kinds of phases like delivery phase, payment phase, information phase and the
negotiation phase (Yasin, Haseeb & Qureshi, 2012). The article has proposed about the
cryptography that involves the hash functions, that also involves the pseudorandom number
generation. HTTPs, SSL and SET protocols have been showcased in the article.
The tenth article focuses on the various aspects of the e-commerce website like
merchant account, payment gateway and the shopping cart (Yusuf & Zeki, 2015). A secured
e-commerce must have all the required security features and measures like the availability,
non-repudiation and the privacy. The major threats which are the area of concern for the e-
commerce websites are DDoS attacks, Trojan Horse and various kinds of notable malware
and virus attacks. SSL can be an effective tool to cater the security to the e-commerce
website. The site must be designed incorporating the security and the privacy parameters.
The eleventh article talks about the cards- Master Card and Visa Card. Various kinds
of security protocols incorporated within to facilitate secure money transaction. Asymmetric
and symmetric cryptographic technique along with the hashing technique has been depicted
in the article (Khandare & Meshram, 2013). The article also depicts about the SDTS
algorithm via which transaction of data can be made with ease and security. Again, this
article has highlighted the concept of biometric authentication.

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The twelfth article has elaborated the security risks and threats like DDoS attacks,
network sniffing, IP spoofing, consumers can be deceived by the hackers in numerous ways
and can fall into their trap (Aggarwal, 2014). The article also talks about the SSL and various
other security solutions by which the attackers can be restricted conducting the malicious
activities.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discourse that the financial transactions are
conducted via these online retailing websites and security is the major issues. The details of
the e-commerce applications have been highlighted in the report. Along with that the security
risks, threats and the privacy features have been highlighted in details. The report is based on
the research of three questions-the security concerns of the e-commerce website, the
necessity for securing the e-commerce website and the ethical issues related to the e-
commerce security. The security solutions have been discussed. The twelve articles have
been showcased in the report where various authors have given various approaches in related
to the security aspects of the e-commerce website. Certain security strategies and security
model must be adopted and the employees working in the e-commerce enterprise must be
knowledgeable about the security solutions so that they cater the best security solutions to the
customers and the enterprise. The security aspects like authentication, authorization has been
discussed in the report via which the customers can stay safe and secure.

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References
Aggarwal, V. (2014). E-Commerce Security Issues And Solutions: A Survey. International
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Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
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Davies, M. B., & Hughes, N. (2014). Doing a successful research project: Using qualitative
or quantitative methods. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gautam, R., & Singh, S. (2014). Network Security Issues in e-Commerce. International
Journal Of Advanced Research In Computer Science And Software Engineering, 4(3).
Ghosh, A. K. (Ed.). (2012). E-commerce Security and Privacy (Vol. 2). Springer Science &
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Khandare, N., & Meshram, D. (2013). Security Of Online Electronic
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Maqableh, M. (2012). Analysis and design security primitives based on chaotic systems for
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Morgan, D. L. (2013). Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods: A pragmatic
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