Internet Risks and Reliability Issues

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BTEC National Certificate                        Unit 29: Introduction to Internet and e-Business

(P1) Internet Risks and Reliability Issues (P2)

Introduction:

This report was produced by undertaking research into several types of business activities on the internet.  The report also identifies the risks and reliability issues associated with the type of activity.  The report was produced by Haroon Sheikh for the Websters Supermarket.  The report was compiled and submitted on 25th FBY 2008.

Findings:

One of the popular worries about e-commerce is the possible (and probably exaggerated) abuse of credit card numbers. But if you book a holiday over the Internet, shouldn't you also worry about a hacker getting hold of your home address and the dates of your holiday, and connecting it with your recent purchase and insurance of expensive Jewelry.

Identity theft is a catch-all term for crimes involving illegal usage of another individual's identity. The most common form of identity theft is credit card fraud (theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. The purpose may be to obtain goods without paying, or to obtain unauthorized funds from an account) While the term is relatively new, the practice of stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be a different person is thousands of years old.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Customers know when this happening because they are warned that are about to view information over a secure connection (server) and then they see the locked padlock symbol and (HTTP) on the address line.  They can then click on the double click the locked padlock symbol to read the authentication/security certificate that confirms that the site is legitimate and the seller is who they claim to be.  However, with this system there is no check that the buyer is genuine and for example, is the true owner of the credit card being used to purchase goods.

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Secure Server is a Web server that supports any of the major security protocols, like SSL, that encrypt and decrypt messages to protect them against third party tampering. Making purchases from a secure Web server ensures that a user's payment or personal information can be translated into a secret code that's difficult to crack.

Phishing is an act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web ...

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The section 'SSL', is quite good. However the report could include a screenshot showing a bank (such as HSBC) with the padlock symbol within their browser. This would enable the examiner to visualize the paragraph. The report states the term 'encrypt', however the student hasn't explained this term. The report could include 'Encryption is the hiding of a certain piece of data. For example a password might be 'One8Two', although using encryption this might be '98&$jHj'. This enables the user to be protected, even if the data is stolen and visible to external people'. The term 'hacker' is poorly explained and this is in-correct. All technical terms should be explained using detail to allow the examiner to understand the accurate description of all technical terms.

The section 'Phishing' could be improved by explaining how a person would set-up the scam. The report could include 'An internet website could be set-up which will look very similar to the real website. However the website will store their username and password when there try to login, and there have the ability to login using their account details from the fake website'.

In summary, the report is quite good. The report is split into a number of sections, which explains more detail regrading each type of feature. However some sections are lacking detail, and some sections could be improved by using screenshots to re-enforced their background understanding. The section 'computer virus' is lacking detail. The report could list a number of known types of viruses, and the harm that that type could have on a computer system. The student has two sections of 'hacker', and the understanding should be placed into one paragraph, rather than two, as it's quite unclear on their understanding by having two which don't link up with each other. The section 'Parental Control' doesn't explain what this is. This is very benefit, and the student would need to expand on their understanding, as it's lacking detail.