E-commerce Weblog

The threat of online security




Definition: An attack perpetrated using software and systems knowledge or expertise.

Issues of online security threat
Organization and users continue to experiences the threat of online security.
It will also cause financial losses. Nowadays, we still need more technology to defend online security threat.


Threat of online security fall under several general categories:
(1)Accidental action
(2)Malicious attacks

Third area of cyber vulnerability is online fraud

1) Accidental actions
-Problems arising from basic lack of knowledge about online security concepts
-Resulting from insecure information transfer
-Largely self-inflicted and avoidable


2) Malicious attacks
-Premeditated or malicious attacks
-Aim to do harm
-This viruses increased substantially, require more time and cost to recover.


Malicious code takes variety of forms-both pure and hybrid.
E.g. Computer virus, worm and trojan horse.






Computer viruses
~A program or a fragment of code that replicates by attaching copies of itself to other programs because it can clone itself independently.
~It can simply infect and spread over the operating system and cause the corrupt in the server system.
For an example: The May 2000 "I LOVE YOU" virus were propagated through Microsoft outlook e-mail and whose payloads were delivered as a Visual Basic for Application( VBA) programs attached to the e-mail messages. When recipient is unaware and opened the email, the VBA program looked up the entries in the recipient’s Outlook address book and send copies of the virus itself to the contacts in the address book.


Denial of Service Attacks
-Denial of service attack are carefully crafted and executed

-It usually involve one computer attacking another

-The use of multiple computers in a highly organized attack is becoming increasingly common Known as Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDOS)

Online fraud
-Covering Internet transactions that involve falsified information.

-Identity theft is a major form of online fraud, or misrepresentation

-Data theft is the term use to describe not only the theft of the information but also unauthorized perusal or manipulate of private data



Related links:
1)http://www.bsagovernment.com/downloads/MajorOnlineThreats.pdf