Lesson 19-E-Commerce Security Needs

Overview Understand e-commerce services. Understand the importance of availability. Implement client-side security. Implement server-side security. Implement application security. Implement database server security. Develop an e-commerce architecture.

Understand E-Commerce Services Organizations perform e-commerce to make profit by providing goods and services at a lower cost. Providing electronic library functions for sensitive or confidential information has come with the advent of e- commerce over the Internet.

Understand E-Commerce Services E-commerce service is most commonly thought of as the purchasing of goods. Security to e-commerce services can be measured by its confidentiality, integrity, and accountability.

Understand E-Commerce Services E-Commerce Services and regular DMZ Services differ in their requirements. Requirement of verification and confidentiality differentiate the e-commerce services from regular DMZ services. Availability becomes a critical security issue for the e- commerce site.

Understand E-Commerce Services E-commerce services may involve selling goods, providing confidential information, or distribution of information. Security to e-commerce services can be measured in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and accountability.

Understand the Importance of Availability Availability is the key issue for e-commerce services. Availability of the site has a direct impact on the confidence a customer will have in using the service. Failure in availability is almost guaranteed to push a potential customer to a competitor.

Understand the Importance of Availability Business-to-consumer issues: The entire site along with payment processing must be up at all times. Problem of availability includes business issues such as ability of the organization to fulfill orders entered into the system. Size of the infrastructure must be built according to the expected load.

Understand the Importance of Availability Business-to-business issues: Business-to-business e-commerce is established between two organizations that have some type of relationship. Availability issues may be more stringent in Business-to- business e-commerce. When one organization needs to make an order, the other organization must be able to receive and process it.

Understand the Importance of Availability Global time: E-commerce availability is governed by the concept of global time. This concept identifies the global nature of the Internet and of e-commerce. An e-commerce site must be able to handle orders from unexpected locations.

Understand the Importance of Availability Client comfort: Client must feel comfortable with the ability of the organization to process orders and deliver goods. Customer comfort or discomfort can multiply quickly.

Understand the Importance of Availability Cost of downtime: The cost of downtime is high. It can be measured by taking the average number of transactions over a period of time and the revenue of the average transaction. An e-commerce site must not have single points of failure. The site should also have procedures for updating hardware and software.

Understand the Importance of Availability Solving the availability problem: Downtime can be reduced through redundancy. For sites that expect large amounts of traffic, load-balancing application layer switches can be used. Network infrastructure components must also be configured to fail-over if high availability is required.

Implement Client-Side Security Client-side security components

Implement Client-Side Security Client-side security deals with the security from the customer’s desktop system to the e-commerce server. A realistic solution to communications security is encryption of information.

Implement Client-Side Security A cookie is a small amount of information that is stored on the client system by the Web server in cleartext or encrypted. Organizations must ensure that a legitimate customer places the order to reduce possible repudiation.

Implement Server-Side Security Security of servers includes: Information stored on the server. Protecting the server from attack.

Information Stored on the Server An e-commerce server is a semi-trusted or untrusted system which should not store sensitive information. If information is kept on the e-commerce server, it should be protected from unauthorized access through file access controls.

Protecting the Server from Attack Three categories in protecting an e-commerce server from attack: Server location. Operating system configuration. Web server configuration.

Server Location Server should be located in a protected area such as a data center. If the server is placed at a co-location facility, physical access to it must be separated from other clients. Firewall should be configured to only allow access to e- commerce server on ports 80 (for HTTP) and 443 (for HTTPS).

Operating System Configuration The first step in configuring the server securely is to remove or turn off any unnecessary services. The latest patches must be checked and loaded for the chosen operating system. The system should meet the organization’s policy and vulnerability scan should be conducted.

Web Server Configuration Web server must not be run as root or administrator for security. CGI scripts on Web server that are not being used should be removed to prevent intruder attack. Web server should be scanned for known vulnerabilities.

Implement Application Security Security of e-commerce application as a whole is the most important part of e-commerce security. Security requirements should be included in the requirements definition phase of project. Security requirements include requirements pertaining to protection, authentication, audit, availability, and identifying sensitive information.

Implement Application Security All sensitive information needs to be protected. Programs are a major source of system vulnerabilities due to programming errors. Buffer overflows can be reduced by not making assumptions about the size of user input and not passing unchecked user input to shell commands. Peer review or code review can catch many programming errors before the server goes into production.

Implement Application Security Vulnerability scanners should detect buffer overflow problems before the site goes into production. The two parts of configuration management are control of authorized changes and identification of unauthorized changes. To prevent false alarms, checksum should be updated during configuration management procedure.

Implement Database Server Security The database server may contain sensitive and confidential information which should be protected. Organizations must examine database location, communication with e-commerce server, and internal access protection. Database servers must be kept in controlled areas. The e-commerce server should initiate SQL connection to the database server for processing transactions.

Implement Database Server Security The e-commerce server must have an ID and password to initiate an SQL connection to the database server. Employees of the organization have access to internal network and thus are able to directly attack it. Database server could be moved to a separate network and protected by an internal firewall.

Develop an E-Commerce Architecture A high-traffic and high-availability e-commerce site requires two ISPs with fail-over capability. Routers, switches, and firewalls should be cross-connected so that failure of any one component will not affect traffic. Redundant switches may be used to ensure availability of the site. Regular vulnerability scans and database auditing must be conducted.

Summary E-commerce service providers can increase revenue by providing information to customers at a lower cost. Security with respect to confidentiality, integrity, and accountability plays a major role in e-commerce. Availability is a key issue for e-commerce. Client-side security protects information in transit, information stored on customer’s computer, and prevents repudiation.

Summary Server-side security involves protection of information stored on the server and protection of the server itself. Security of the e-commerce application as a whole is probably the most important part of e-commerce security. Confidential and sensitive information present in the database server must be protected.