Implications of Security in Digital Businesses

The university was hacked during a massive hacking exercise in the United States in March 2018. The attacker tricked a university professor into allowing him access to his data by compromising his account. Cyber Experts estimates that 31 TB of data was stolen, resulting in a $ 3 billion loss of intellectual property (2020). This is an example of the damage a cybersecurity threat can cause.

Cybersecurity, also known as information technology security, is the process of protecting all forms of digital devices, networks, digital platforms, and electronic data from malicious attacks, theft, unauthorized access, and destruction. Therefore, protecting virtual business assets from all kinds of malicious damage, theft, illegal access, alteration or destruction is called e-commerce security.

Ecommerce security is of critical importance in order safeguard privacy and sensitive data of the clientele of the digital platform, safeguarding the finances of the ecommerce firm, averting digital fraud, eliminating financial swindles, preserving reputation of the ecommerce firm as a secure business to maintain transactions as well as to evade security risks such as malware, viruses, attackers, hackers and counterfeit sites that can erase, hijack, block network data or spread malicious links to connected clients and devices (Gomez, 2007).

Privacy, authentication, availability, confidentiality, non-repudiation, and integrity are the main elements of e-commerce security that affect all stakeholders of a virtual organization from all sides.

E-commerce platforms are the target of 32.4 percent of all cyberattacks, and the rapid advancement of technology has increased the sophistication and power of e-commerce cybercrime. As a result, e-commerce sites are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats, with fraudulent requests accounting for more than 29% of all traffic to e-commerce platforms (Prashant, 2015).

Common types of cyberflows are phishing, data breaches, malware and ransomware, cyberstalking, and invasion of privacy. In order to manage cyber risks, an e-commerce company must actively and continuously conduct security risk management. Thus, e-commerce managers must follow the following procedure to protect themselves from all cyber risks at all times.

• Risk assessment - List the information assets available and the level of their value to the business to identify each asset’s vulnerability to cyber threats.
• Develop Cyber ​​Security Policy - ​Asset Types and Who Are Protected, Reasons and Importance Priority for Protecting Each Asset, People Responsible for Protecting Each Asset, Standard and Rejected Behaviors for Maintenance Standard Specific Documents on Cyber ​​Security (Carpenter, 2010).
• Formulation of a strategic execution plan - Actionable strategies and methods to mitigate and eliminate security risks to achieve the firm’s security objectives.
• Establish a Cybersecurity Department - Establish a dedicated unit to manage security policy and effectively implement security strategies.
• Execute security auditing, monitoring, and measuring program success - Static and continuous review procedures for access logs, security program assessments, and metrics-based cybersecurity program success assessments.

A Furthermore, the best and most sophisticated cybersecurity strategies and techniques used by major e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Ali Baba and Zappos can be identified as follows:

1.NORA - Software that mines data to identify unclear relationships.
2. CAPTCHA - Software that mines data to identify unclear relationships.
3. Rock - Tight firewalls that provide selective penetration, allowing only trusted traffic to access the platform (Horowitz and Lozero, 2017).
4. Obtaining Secure Server Layer certificates to encrypt sensitive data transmitted through the platform.
5. Anti-malware software to decrypt and block malware.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the author believes that ecommerce firms should employ a strong and sophisticated system to defense itself from cyber security risks and continuously update those strategies and maintain thorough focus on cyber security in order to preserve the wellbeing of an ecommerce firm and all its stakeholders.

References

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Varghese, J. 2020. Ecommerce Security: Importance, Issues & Protection Measure.
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[Accessed 30th March 2022]

Carpenter, S., 2010. Battling Cyber Threats. Science Weekly.
[Accessed 29th March 2022]

Gomez, J.M., 2007. Intrusion Detection Management System for ecommerce Security. Journal of Information Privacy and Security.
Available at: https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/exponential-business-model/uber-an-exponential-business-model/
[Accessed 10th March 2022]

Horowitz, B.M. and Lucero, D.S, 2017. System-aware cyber security: A systems engineering approach for enhancing cyber security Insight.

Prashant, P. 2015. Ecommerce security issues, policies, and model. Deutschland: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing.

Rademaker, M. 2016. Assessing Cyber Security 2015. Information & Security: An International Journal.