Can current technologies allay fears over the security of financial transactions on the WWW?.
The rapidly changing nature of technology and communications has led to the World Wide Web and E-Commerce being labeled the future of business. However as standards in technology rise and the progress of the 'Information Age' increases, so do society and the media's paranoia towards a computer-controlled world.
It appears that for every media report of a great new advancement in E-Commerce, there are three or four more relating to the closure of an 'E-Company' or the breakdown in security of a major Internet corporation. .
High profile examples include the report last March on Amazon.com, .
"Intruders had access to customer credit details for four months at site owned by world's biggest e-tailer". .
These kinds of reports have led to talk in the electronic business sector that their future is far from secure if they are unable to calm the fears of the average person.
It seems fair to say that much of the fears arise from the early days of commercial exploitation of the WWW where investors, realizing the potential, rushed into the market with no previous experience and quickly found themselves in difficulties. .
When a large company like Barclays quickly added itself to the growing list of companies joining the revolution, it found itself at the center of all kinds of bad publicity, as it failed to make its customer details secure.
Its not all negatives however, firms have shown that with the correct use of available resources a secure environment can be achieved. As far back in the WWW commercial life as 1998, the German mortgage bank, DG HYP, was able to manipulate current technologies to provide a safe service for its customers. .
The bank took advantage of many security options available to them, such as complex firewall architectures and digital signatures, and has so far had no reported security breaches.