What is e-Commerce?
e-Commerce refers to the exchange of goods and services over the Internet. All major retail brands have an online presence, and many brands have no associated bricks and mortar presence. However, e-Commerce also applies to business to business transactions, for example, between manufacturers and suppliers or distributors.
In the online retail space, there are a number of models that retailers can adopt. Traditionally, the Web presence has been kept distinct from the bricks and mortar presence, so transactions were limited to buying online and delivering the goods or services. The online presence is also important for researching a product that a customer can purchase later in the store. Recently, there has been a trend towards multi-channel retail, allowing new models such as purchasing online and picking up in store.
e-Commerce systems are also relevant for the services industry. For example, online banking and brokerage services allow customers to retrieve bank statements online, transfer funds, pay credit card bills, apply for and receive approval for a new mortgage, buy and sell securities, and get financial guidance and information.
Security overview
A secure system accomplishes its task with no unintended side effects. Using the analogy of a house to represent the system, you decide to carve out a piece of your front door to give your pets’ easy access to the outdoors. However, the hole is too large, giving access to burglars. You have created an unintended implication and therefore, an insecure system.
In the software industry, security has two different perspectives. In the software development community, it describes the security features of a system. Common security features are ensuring passwords that are at least six characters long and encryption of sensitive data. For software consumers, it is protection against attacks rather than specific features of the system. Your house may have the latest alarm system and windows with bars, but if you leave your doors unlocked, despite the number of security features your system has, it is still insecure. Hence, security is not a number of features, but a system process. The weakest link in the chain determines the security of the system. In this article, we focus on possible attack scenarios in an e-Commerce system and provide preventive strategies, including security features, that you can implement.
Security has three main concepts: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality allows only authorized parties to read protected information. For example, if the postman reads your mail, this is a breach of your privacy. Integrity ensures data remains as is from the sender to the receiver. If someone added an extra bill to the envelope, which contained your credit card bill, he has violated the integrity of the mail. Availability ensures you have access and are authorized to resources. If the post office destroys your mail or the postman takes one year to deliver your mail, he has impacted the availability of your mail.
The players
In a typical e-Commerce experience, a shopper proceeds to a Web site to browse a catalog and make a purchase. This simple activity illustrates the four major players in e-Commerce security. One player is the shopper who uses his browser to locate the site. The site is usually operated by a merchant, also a player, whose business is to sell merchandise to make a profit. As the merchant business is selling goods and services, not building software, he usually purchases most of the software to run his site from third-party software vendors. The software vendor is the last of the three legitimate players. The attacker is the player whose goal is to exploit the other three players for illegitimate gains. Figure 2 illustrates the players in a shopping experience.
The attacker can besiege the players and their resources with various damaging or benign schemes that result in system exploitation. Threats and vulnerabilities are classified under confidentiality, integrity, and availability. A threat is a possible attack against a system. It does not necessarily mean that the system is vulnerable to the attack. An attacker can threaten to throw eggs against your brick house, but it is harmless. A vulnerability is a weakness in the system, but it is not necessarily known by the attacker. For example, only you know that you have left your front door unlocked. Vulnerabilities exist at entry and exit points in the system. In a house, the vulnerable points are the doors and windows. When the burglar threatens to break into your house and finds the vulnerability of the unlocked door, he is exploiting the assets in the house.
Security features
While security features do not guarantee a secure system, they are necessary to build a secure system. Security features have four categories:
Authentication: Verifies who you say you are. It enforces that you are the only one allowed to logon to your Internet banking account.
Authorization: Allows only you to manipulate your resources in specific ways. This prevents you from increasing the balance of your account or deleting a bill.
Encryption: Deals with information hiding. It ensures you cannot spy on others during Internet banking transactions.
Auditing: Keeps a record of operations. Merchants use auditing to prove that you bought a specific merchandise.
Security features
While security features do not guarantee a secure system, they are necessary to build a secure system. Security features have four categories:
Authentication: Verifies who you say you are. It enforces that you are the only one allowed to logon to your Internet banking account.
Authorization: Allows only you to manipulate your resources in specific ways. This prevents you from increasing the balance of your account or deleting a bill.
Encryption: Deals with information hiding. It ensures you cannot spy on others during Internet banking transactions.
Auditing: Keeps a record of operations. Merchants use auditing to prove that you bought a specific merchandise.
Points the attacker can target
As mentioned, the vulnerability of a system exists at the entry and exit points within the system. Figure 3 shows an e-Commerce system with several points that the attacker can target:
Shopper
Shopper’ computer
Network connection between shopper and Web site’s server
Web site’s server
Software vendor