Crafty Crafts Limited: E-Commerce Monitoring and Control Policy Plan

This report presents an e-commerce monitoring and control policy plan for Crafty Crafts Limited, addressing key aspects of online business operations. The report begins with an analysis of intellectual capital, including potential impacts of intellectual property theft and strategies to minimize these risks. It then explores analytical opportunities using behavioral and attitudinal data, with examples for Crafty Craft's online stores. The report also examines CRM systems, Google Analytics features, and their roles in controlling online businesses. A significant portion is dedicated to risk assessment and management, covering user authentication methods, password security, and potential malware threats. The report concludes with a discussion of security breaches, risks associated with new staff access, the impact of ISP outages, and actions to mitigate these risks. The report provides a comprehensive overview of e-commerce security and control, offering practical insights and strategies for businesses operating in the online environment.

Running head: E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
E-Commerce Monitoring and Control Policy Plan for Crafty Crafts Limited
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E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
Table of Contents
A. Intellectual Capital......................................................................................................................3
1. Three potential impacts that theft of intellectual property due to employees moving to
competitors can cause for an e-commerce business:...................................................................3
2. Examples of minimizing the potential impacts identified:......................................................4
B. Analytical Opportunities:............................................................................................................4
Behavioral & Attitudinal Data-...................................................................................................4
3. Examples of three analytical opportunities for Crafty Craft online stores:.............................4
4. Four factors an e-commerce CRM system can measure in order to control online businesses:
.....................................................................................................................................................5
5. Four features for measurement that Google Analytics offer:..................................................6
C. Risk Assessment and Management:............................................................................................7
6. Three methods that could authenticate the users of the Crafty Craft e-commerce site to
illustrate the robustness of security control for online transactions:...........................................7
7. One example of weak password for Crafty Craft:...................................................................7
One example of strong password for Crafty Craft:.....................................................................7
D. Breach of Security:.....................................................................................................................8
8. Three potential malware threats:.............................................................................................8
9. Two significant risks to the business of Crafty Craft on giving access to all areas of e-
commerce back end functions, files and servers to the new staffs:.............................................8
10. Impact on the business due to excessive ISP outages:..........................................................9
Two actions to mitigate the risk:.................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

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E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
E-Commerce Monitoring and Control Policy Plan for Crafty Craft Limited
A. Intellectual Capital
1. Three potential impacts that theft of intellectual property due to employees
moving to competitors can cause for an e-commerce business:
E-commerce, markets are growing in a large pace. For every e-commerce business, the
main goal is to dominate over the industry. As a result of which the competition in e—commerce
market is cutthroat (Kim, Chan & Gupta, 2015). The potential impacts that may cause to an e-
commerce business due to the theft in intellectual properties include:
1. Customer Disputes: As e-commerce and intellectual properties are related with each other,
hence it becomes essential for e-commerce business to maintain a flow in between the two. One
of the potential impact that arises due to the theft in Intellectual properties may cause is the
customer dispute. Dissatisfied customers often fallout from the e-commerce business and often
opt for other competitors causing major setback in the economy of the business.
2. Challenges in protecting trade secrets: As a result of the potential threats in Intellectual
properties in e-commerce business, the most vital; impact is caused in the trade secrets. Trade
secrets which are the vital parts of a business, can be get stolen by various means such a
industrial espionage where the intense competition between exporting markets and domestic
competitors increases the theft by the outsiders.
3. Cyber-attacks: As employees tend to move towards other competitors in the e-commerce
platform, risks may arise related to the disclosure of the compliance and regulatory disclosers of

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the company. This impacts the business by shaping it towards to the potential risks of Cyber-
attacks. Thus it becomes essential for companies to prioritize their cyber defense efforts.
2. Examples of minimizing the potential impacts identified:
The identified potential impacts can be reduced in the following ways:
1. Customer disputes: The threats related customer disputes can be resolved by ensuring that
the organization does not charge its customers until shipments are being processed (Hussainy,
Tariq & Khan, 2017). The company should ensure a clear refund policy for their customers in
order to stand out in the competitive market.
2. Challenges in maintaining trade secrets: The company should legally audit and patent their
contents and sites where the products are displayed. This will help the company in maintaining
their trade secrets at the very first step.
3. Cyber-attacks: As a wide range of internet users are using the e-commerce sites, hence it is
the responsibility of the business to use strong passwords and multi-layered security systems on
their websites to prevent cyber-attacks.
B. Analytical Opportunities:
Behavioral & Attitudinal Data-
3. Examples of three analytical opportunities for Crafty Craft online stores:
(a) Demographic profiling: Demographic profiling plays an important role in analyzing the
customer behavior in online shopping platform (De Andrés et al., 2015). In order to categorize
the respondents of online shopping platform, and to determine the shopping behavior, different

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demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education, occupation, income comes into play.
Demographic profiling impacts in the profiling and segmentation of consumers helping in
analyzing strategies required for product planning, their pricing, distribution and promotion (De
Andrés et al., 2015).
(b) Spend by category (individual and total): Spend by category is an unique approach for
online stores for logically grouping the items or services that are available in their websites
(Giomelakis & Veglis, 2015). Different statistics have shown that spend by category opportunity
has attracted a wide range of consumers for online shopping preferences.
(c) Satisfaction drivers: Customer satisfaction plays an important role for E-business. E-
commerce is one of the fastest growing fields with new opportunities for the growth of business.
There are several factors that drive the satisfaction force in the online e-business
4. Four factors an e-commerce CRM system can measure in order to control online
businesses:
CRM system is one of the important parts for any online businesses. CRM software has
overtaken majority of the online business and has become the largest of all the software markets
(Ahmed, Amroush & Maati, 2019). Four factors that can be measured with the help of CRM
system in the company of Crafty Craft includes-
 It provides 360 ° view of the customers
 It measures and monitors all the tasks and deals that are taking place within the
company’s online business and thus improve the customer experiences.
 It helps to measure and centralize all customer related data
 It also helps in measuring the brand performance of the online business

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E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
5. Four features for measurement that Google Analytics offer:
For online e-commerce business, Google Analytics plays an important role in
understanding and improving the performances of the websites (Giomelakis & Veglis, 2015). As
Crafty Craft company tends to move its business towards the online platform, it is important that
they use this technology within their business.
Some of the features of measurement that Google Analytics offer include the following:
 Filters: The feature of filter is one of the good feature that is provided by Google
analytics to control the data that is available at the e-commerce site of the online
businesses.
 Calculated metrics: Sticking to default metrics is an age old approach that is used by
online stores. As the technology advances, Google Analytics provides the best feature in
creating a personalized set of metrics that helps in analysis and optimization of data that
is obtained.
 Channel grouping: The analyzed and the optimized data needs to be viewed in the
online store platform and for that Google Analytics provides the feature of customized
channel grouping that also helps in viewing the performance of channels holistically.
 Event tracking: Tracking user interaction is another important feature that is provided
by Google Analytics in two different ways- page views and events. Page views are
regarded as the greatest foundation of many reports in the Google Analytics. It enables
the online store to measure and learn the happenings on the page while tracking the
events.

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C. Risk Assessment and Management:
6. Three methods that could authenticate the users of the Crafty Craft e-commerce
site to illustrate the robustness of security control for online transactions:
 Electronic authentication: Crafty Craft can use the electronic authentication method in
order to authenticate its users before they proceed with any online transaction (Chen,
Beaudoin & Hong, 2017). Digital authentication of customers may include features like
electronic signature that can provide evidence of the gathered data after being signed
from the original sender.
 Multifactor authentication method: The multifactor authentication method in e-
commerce business is one of a unique kind and requires the user to use a user id ,
password in combination of any other form of authentication method such as biometric
authentication or smart card authentication.
 Keystroke dynamics: Keystroke dynamics is another form of authentication method that
can be used by the business of Crafty Craft. The method is entirely automated based on
something that is related to the user (Herbert & Litchfield, 2015). It authenticates the user
or the customers based on the typing pattern in the keyboard.
7. One example of weak password for Crafty Craft: Too many passwords are easily
guessed having the same digits or alphabets. Passwords related to the employees name, or secret
names of children or sports are example of weak passwords. E.g. AAAAAAAA or 12345678
One example of strong password for Crafty Craft: A strong password should contain a
minimum of eight characters having a mixture of upper case letters, lower case letters and a
combination of certain special characters. E.g.?**/Cc@&

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D. Breach of Security:
8. Three potential malware threats:
Malware or malicious software affects the online business process in a wide range and on a
daily basis. It disrupts the entire IT setup of the business leading to deletion or stealing of
important information related to business or even data related to the customers.
 Installation of malware in the computer systems if the company can infect all other parts
of the computer and devices attached with them (Paullet et al. 2016). This malware then
gets spread via email and other attachments causing disruption of the entire online
business systems.
 An installation of malware may also lead to some particular cyber threats such as ransom
ware. Ransom ware is a type of software that holds the parts of the computers used within
the company and demands a certain amount of money in order to release them (Guo,
Cheng & Kelley, 2016).
 Malware installation within online business may also lead to cyber threats such as
phishing where false links can enter in the personal information or finance related details
of the company and lead to data breach.
9. Two significant risks to the business of Crafty Craft on giving access to all areas
of e-commerce back end functions, files and servers to the new staffs:
As the company of Crafty craft provides all access to its new staffs about the back end
functions hence it is kind of a risk for the company as the staffs or employees are new and may
not be aware of the security policy of the businesses. Two significant risks that may occur as a
result of this include:

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E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
 Staffs making mistakes through ignorance or negligence. It may also occur that the new
staffs behave in an illegal or improper manner making inappropriate or unauthorized
changes to the back end functions.
 Malicious third parties may exploit the network protocols of the back end functions and
may disrupt the entire business (Pathirana & Wellala, 2018). As a result of which the
routing devices also starts malfunctioning due to the inappropriate access provided to the
staffs on the target information.
10. Impact on the business due to excessive ISP outages:
Excessive ISP outages may lead to tremendous effect on the online business platforms. It
may occur due to various seasons such as congestion, failed link to provider,, equipment failure
and may cause the following impact in business:
1. Excessive ISP outages can lead to decrease in the revenue both in terms of loss in sales and
business and also in terms of loss in the wages.
2. Excessive ISP outages can also affect in the reputation of the company. Depending on the type
of ISP outages valuable data can get lost leading to legal penalties for getting failed in delivery in
different service levels (Hasnain, 2015).
3. ISP outages may also lead to the failure in hardware, malicious attacks and problems with
specific applications (Kelic, Mitchell & Shirah, 2017).
Two actions to mitigate the risk:
1. Device discovery and monitoring of performance:
The first and the foremost step in mitigating the risk of ISP outages leading to issues in
potential network is to discover the devices that are present on the network and the current status

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E-COMMERCE MONITORING AND CONTROL POLICY PLAN
of those devices. For mitigating this issue of ISP outages, a top of the line network monitoring
software needs to be used within the online platform of the Crafty Craft’s business in order to
auto discover the devices on the network and to eliminate the entry of device information
manually.
2. Using smart alert:
Another solution for mitigating the risk of ISP outages include using of smart alert in the
network monitoring software sending alert to the managers whenever a device is on the edge of
reaching to its critical threshold. This will enable the managers in setting up devices to produce
an alert whenever a device is on the alert state. This will enable the company in providing
solution to the problem before an end –user notices it.

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References:
Ahmed, B. S., Amroush, F., & Maati, M. B. (2019). The Intelligence of E-CRM Applications
and Approaches on Online Shopping Industry. In Advanced Methodologies and
Technologies in Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship (pp. 70-82). IGI Global.
Chen, H., Beaudoin, C. E., & Hong, T. (2017). Securing online privacy: An empirical test on
Internet scam victimization, online privacy concerns, and privacy protection
behaviors. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 291-302.
De Andrés, J., Pariente, B., Gonzalez-Rodriguez, M., & Fernandez Lanvin, D. (2015). Towards
an automatic user profiling system for online information sites: identifying demographic
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Giomelakis, D., & Veglis, A. (2015). Employing search engine optimization techniques in online
news articles. Studies in media and communication, 3(1), 22-33.
Guo, H., Cheng, H. K., & Kelley, K. (2016). Impact of network structure on malware
propagation: a growth curve perspective. Journal of Management Information
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Hasnain, S. (2015). Design, Implementation and Monitoring of an ISP’s Network
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Herbert, J., & Litchfield, A. (2015, January). A novel method for decentralised peer-to-peer
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Hussainy, S. K., Tariq, U., & Khan, E. (2017). A Preliminary Investigation of the Effects of
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