| | Electronic Commerce : Security | 
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There are a number of security issues which arise when a customer purchases an item over the Internet. Some common problems which customers encounter are :
| Lack of Information Customers often have access to less information about a company that they are dealing
with on the Internet than they would if they visited a high street shop. Just because a
web site claims to be run
by a well known company does not mean that it actually is. Fraudulent web sites
have been set up to gather credit card information so that money can be stolen from
the card owners. It can also be particularly
hard to rectify problems with an order if the company that you are dealing with is located
abroad. |
Transferring | Card Details To pay for a purchase, credit or debit card details must be transferred across a public
WAN. These details could be intercepted and used to make fraudulent purchases. Most
e-commerce web sites use a secure server. This means that they use a system such as
SSL to
encrypt card details when they are transmitted. It would be very
difficult for a hacker to steal card information during transmission. |
Linked | Systems E-commerce web sites are often linked to other
information systems belonging to a
company. There have been a number of cases where companies have accidentally allowed
Internet users to access these linked systems. As a result customers'
credit card details have been made public. This is the result of poor
security, and a breach of
the 1998 Data Protection Act for companies based in the UK.
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GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004