Describe security measures needed to protect your e-commerce site.
Describe Security Measures needed to protect your ecommerce Website
A successful security system designed for an e-commerce site is a matrix, or a combination of individual methods, techniques, and subsystems. Whenever possible, you want to use as many security principles and techniques as possible to protect each resource.
For instance, a network that relies solely on authentication is not nearly as secure as one that combines authentication, access control, and encryption. Access control occurs if you apply packet filtering to the router.
A firewall provides more access control. In most e-commerce sites, a firewall is designed to provide access control more than anything else.
If you supplement this with Secure Socket Layers (SSL) or Secure Electronic Transactions (SETs) at the Web server, you will be using encryption as well as authentication. Finally, an e-commerce site should always install intrusion detection software on mission-critical network segments and hosts.
Authentication: Establishes a person's identity.
Access control: Determines where a person or network host is allowed to enter a system.
Encryption: Encryption is the process of transforming a file using a mathematical function or technique so that the contents of the file are protected from unwanted viewing.
Packet filtering: The use of a type of firewall device that processes network traffic on a packet-by-packet basis. Packet filter devices allow or block packets, and are typically implemented through standard routers.
Firewall: A firewall is a series of applications and hardware that filters and audits outside network traffic as it passes into your network.
As shown in the diagram below, these key areas have particular risks associated with them.
Local resources - Protect your employee workstations by enabling password-protected screen savers to prevent snooping. Require that each employee use a virus checker and observe caution when downloading anything from the Internet.
Network resources - Physically secure your routers, switches, and patch panels. Ensure that your DNS servers are free from tampering. If you have WINS or SAMBA servers internal to your e-commerce company, make sure that they are properly configured and secure. These network resources are the primary communication medium for the entire company. If a hacker gains access to or control of these elements, he or she has access to all or most company data.
Database and information resources - A major asset of any company is the information it organizes and disseminates. A hacker's ultimate goal is to discover this information, as well as tamper with the networks and methods that help to create and communicate the information.
Server resources - Your World Wide Web, email, and FTP servers are vulnerable to several types of intrusions. Typically, servers provide storage for the network infrastructure and act as the hub. They also control overall system security. Hackers try to gain access to server resources because they can then access and control other resources.
Use cryptographic methods to provide data confidentiality, data integrity, and authentication
Provide access control for all systems, servers, and files
Secure CGI and other executable scripts
Utilize virus scanning software and keep it up to date
Combine security techniques to provide the best possible security. For example, connect the Web server to the database using a different protocol than TCP/IP
Define a system security policy and security administration
Train all users on security policies that apply to their jobs
Build a firewall between your network and the Internet
The bullet points below summarize the most important attributes and goals of an effective security system for an e-commerce site.
Highly Secure:
Allows access only to legitimate, authenticated users.
Implements strong encryption protocols to protect data in transit and at rest.
Regularly updates and patches to mitigate security vulnerabilities.
Utilizes multi-factor authentication to enhance security measures.
Monitors and logs all access and activity to detect and respond to potential threats.
Ensures compliance with industry standards and regulations for data protection.
Easy to Use:
Specific applications should employ an intuitive interface.
Provide clear and concise documentation and tutorials for users.
Offer user-friendly navigation and easily accessible features.
Ensure a consistent and responsive user experience across all devices.
Implement helpful tooltips and in-app guidance to assist users.
Conduct regular usability testing to identify and address any user pain points.
Flexible and Scalable:
Allows business to be conducted as needed.
Adapts easily to changing business requirements and market conditions.
Supports seamless integration with other systems and platforms.
Provides scalable infrastructure to handle growing amounts of data and users.
Offers flexible deployment options, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid models.
Superior Alarming and Reporting
Notifies the administrator quickly and in sufficient detail of a breach.
These steps ensure that only legitimate, authenticated users can access the system while providing multiple layers of security to protect against unauthorized access.
Appropriate Cost of Ownership:
Planning includes initial purchase cost as well as costs for upgrades and service.
Planning accounts for successful cost of implementation and maintenance.
System attributes and Threat Modeling
Threat modeling will lead you to categories of issues that other tools will not find. Some of these issues will be errors of omission, such as a failure to authenticate a connection. That is not something that a code analysis tool will find. Other issues will be unique to your design. To the extent that you have a set of smart developers building something new, you might have new ways threats can manifest. Models of what goes wrong, by abstracting away details, will help you see analogies and similarities to problems that have been discovered in other systems. A corollary of this is that threat modeling should not focus on issues that your other safety and security engineering is likely to fi nd (except insofar as finding them early lets you avoid re-engineering).
So if, for example, you are building a product with a database, threat modeling might touch quickly on SQL injection attacks, and the variety of trust boundaries that might be injectable. However, you may know that you will encounter those. Your threat modeling should focus on issues that other techniques cannot find.
Spoofing: Someone might pretend to be another customer, so you will need a way to authenticate users. Someone might also pretend to be your website, so you should ensure that you have an SSL certificate and that you use a single domain for all your pages (to help that subset of customers who read URLs to see if they are in the right place). Someone might also place a deep link to one of your pages, such as logout.html or placeorder.aspx. You should be checking the Referrer field before taking action. That is not a complete solution to what are called CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) attacks, but it is a start.
In the next lesson, you will learn more about operating system security.
