The aplication of 3rd Party Certification Programme in Malaysia

Third party certification program is a procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks. The third party who issues the digital certificate to verify and authenticate the website is called certificate authorities (CA). Certification Authority is a trusted third party in a public key security system which is responsible for providing the identity of users and issuing them with certificates.

Since there are threats of internet security spreading over the internet nowadays, it is important to gain the certification from third party in order to ensure that our information transmitted over internet reaches the destinations safely. Besides, certification is needed because it assures users with e-mail protection and validation as well as security of online shopping in order to avoid from hacked and attacked by malicious software such as Trojan, virus and worms. Upon the provision of 3rd party certification program in Malaysia, users will be able to transact through the internet safely.

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is the company that provides the third party program in Malaysia. According to the history, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd was established in 1999 as a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia under the Digital Signature Act 1997(DSA), a Malaysia law that sets a global precedent for the mandate of a certificate authorities. The objective of Trustgate is to secure the open network communications and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce, both locally and across the ASEAN region. In addition, the vision of Trustgate is to enable organizations to conduct their business securely over the internet.

Moreover, Trustgate provides digital certification services such as digital certificates, cryptographic products and software development.Other than that, the provision of products and services of Trustgate are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKAD ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development.

http://www.msctrustgate.com/

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Twenty years after the release of the Morris Worm, one of the first worms discovered on the Internet, the Web has proven to be the primary place where bad guys lurk, looking for poorly secured websites to plant malicious code. The threats from online Web have only been increasing over the years.

According to the SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security Institute), the top six threats are:

Web servers and services. Default HTTP (Web) servers have had several vulnerabilities, and numerous patches have been issued over the past several years. These vulnerabilities may lead to denial-of-service attacks and other types of threats.

Workstation service. An attacker can obtain full control over a computer by compromising the Windows Workstation service, which is normally used to route user requests.

Windows remote access services. A variety of remote access methods are included by default on most systems. These systems can be very useful, but also very dangerous, and an attacker with the right tools can easily gain control over a host.

Web browsers. A Web browser contains many vulnerabilities. Common exploits may include disclosure of "cookies" with personal information, the execution of rogue code that could compromise a system, and exposure of locally-stored files. Configuring the browser's security settings for a setting higher than the default value will prevent most Web browser attacks.

File sharing applications. Peer-to-peer (P2P) programs are commonly used to share files. In a P2P system, computers are open to others in the P2P network to allow for all participants to search for and download files from one another. Many corporation forbid use of P2P networks because of the obvious risk of compromised data.

Cyber criminals will always be ahead of security experts simply because most of what the anti-malware providers discover is generally published for the public; the bad guys aren't as open with what they do. But, being aware of trends, keeping security patches up to date, and installing firewalls will help us to prevent falling prey to online threats..

references link(s):
http://www.onlinesecurity-guide.com/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-primary-online-security-threats.htm

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Nowadays, credit card debts become a serious problem to many people. Credit cards have convenience to us and improve our security when shopping or traveling, but if we misuse credit card it will increase user liabilities

Why credit will lead to people owe huge liabilities? How can we prevent it? Let me discuss to

u all…

Causes:
The major reason cause credit card debt is people only pay the minimum amount and interest, they won’t pay full amount on their spending. The debt will keep increasing. Penalty and high interest will give to user if their late pay or unpaid. Some companies charge yearly membership fees of anywhere from $20 to $100.

People have lost their job, but sundry expenses still need to spend. Without income can’t cover spending. Price of goods and services keep increasing but income reduce or no changing.

Poor money management also a reasons increase credit card debts. Without budget spending plan, we can’t control our spending. We need clear our sundry expenses and extra expenses.

Prevention:
Have to create budget on your spending, try reducing spending and avoiding some unnecessary spending. Monthly income must can cover spending and save fixed amount money into bank

Reduce chances use credit card, pay cash rather than use credit card. It just use for emergencies purpose.

Try paying the full amount on monthly spending, don’t let credit card’s companies charge penalty to your spending. Always check your spending list and spend below income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_debt

http://www.debtcause.com/

http://www.credit-land.com/articles/articles_page_68600_1881780_120.php

How to safeguard our personal and financial data

Nowadays, computer and internet is very common for every person. Sometimes we will use internet help we do some financial transactions such as online banking. We need access thorough our personal information and financial data; this will lead to security problem. Hackers have the ability to intercept and use that data.

How can avoid this kind of problem to protect our confidential data? How can we do improve our internet security and decrease data stolen probability? There are some suggestions stated in below:

1. Use combination of number and letters create a strong password and PINs to protect access data.
2. Avoid downloading information from unknown websites and accessing financial information in public such as free wireless in cafe.
3. Use and update antivirus and antispyware software such as Symantec and Norton antivirus, AVG antivirus to avoid hackers intercept data.
4. Install firewall program to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network connected to the Internet. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.
5. Use a legitimate anti-spyware program to scan your computer and remove any of the infected files.
6. avoid giving personal information to unknown parties, although he/she is your friends



http://www.ehow.com/how_2065985_safeguard-personal-information-work-computer.html
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/safeguard-personal-information-online-1282.
php
http://www.internetrti.com/support/rti2000/kb/webhelp/RTI_kb/Password_and_Encryption_
Key_Safeguard_Financial_Data_Transmitted_Across_RTInet.htm

History and Evolution of E-commerce

Electronic commerce (EC) describes the manner in which transactions take place over networks, mostly the Internet. It is the process of electronically buying and selling goods, services and information. Certain E-commerce applications such as buying and selling stocks and airline tickets on the internet has grown rapidly result in exceeding non-Internet trades.

E-commerce is not just about buying and selling but also the process of electronically communicating, collaborating, and discovering information .It is about e-learning, e-government and social networks. Furthermore, EC-commerce provides impacts on significant portion of the world such as affecting businesses, professions and people.

Development of E-commerce applications started in the early 1970s with the introduction of electronic funds transfer (EFT), which refers to the computer-based systems that is used to perform financial transactions electronically. However, these applications are limited to financial institutes and large corporations.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) was then developed in the late 1970s in order to improve the limitation of electronic funds transfer. Electronic data interchange enlarged the pool of participating company from manufacturers, retailers, services, and others. These systems were then called Inter-organizational System (IOS).An Inter-organizational System (IOS) allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organizations.

From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
E-commerce has begun before personal computers were prevalent and well known in the world.
As time goes by, it has eventually grown into multi-billion industry. Following are the examples of evolution of E-commerce:

In the year 1984, EDI which is electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guarantees that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

In the year 1992, CompuServe offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things through their computer.

In the year 1994, arrival of Netscape has provided users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

In the year 1995, two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched such as Amazon.com and eBay.com.

In the year 1998, DSL which is Digital Subscriber Line provides fast Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time and money through online.

In the year 1999, retail spending over the Internet reached $20 billion according to Business.com.

In the year 2000, the U.S government has extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least year 2005.

The term electronic commerce was coined in the early of year 1990s when Internet became commercialized and users began flocking to participate in the World Wide Web. E-commerce applications were then rapidly expanded.

E-commerce is possibly introduced from the Telephone Exchange Office. The earliest example of many-to-many EC in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange where is a marketplace for used computers that launched in year 1982. The first online information marketplace which including online consulting was likely the American Information Exchange.

http://ict.cdimm.org/man/engleza/ecomm03.pdf
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles6/world-wide-web-evolution.htm

Success of E-Commerce and causes

Google Inc is one of the examples for e-commerce success. Google Inc. is an American public corporation which manage to earn revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, which is Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California The company has 20,222 full-time employees as at 31st December 2008

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanfor University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations have been important tenets during the growth of Google, the latter resulting in being identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work. The unofficial company slogan is "Don't be evil", although criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship and discontinuation of services.

Causes
Following are factors for the success of Google in the industry:

Technology. Along with its innovative approach to page ranking, Google is a purpose-built hardware company, building all its own servers from components it buys directly for their manufacturers. Nowadays, Google operates the world's largest distributed computer system.

Business Model Innovation. By perfecting the nature of targeted advertisements, Google has not only created a highly effective revenue generator, but also produced what it hopes to be a better experience for its users. It is Google's goal to make their targeted advertisements to be relevant and useful to users as the search would render them results.

Brand A European study recently determined Google to be the number one most recognized worldwide brand. Indeed, Google has become a verb ("I can't wait to get home and Google him") which poses real challenges to a company seeking to protect the strength of its mark.

Focus On The User Experience. Product decisions at Google are driven by optimizing for the user experience first and for revenue second. The folks at Google firmly believe that the better the user experience, the more easily money will follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
http://ventureblog.com/articles/2003/05/4_keys_to_googl.php

Phishing and Its Prevention Methods

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. A typical method of phishing is the use of fraudulent e-mails and Web sites to lure consumers into sharing personal and financial information. Criminals are sending out millions of “urgent” e-mails trying to get unsuspecting consumers to divulge personal information such as their Social Security numbers or the passwords for their online accounts. Besides sending fraudulent emails, phishing can also be found in popular social web sites (YouTube, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger), auction sites (eBay), online banks(online payment processors (PayPal), or IT Administrators (Yahoo, ISPs) are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting.

Phishing can cause denail of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss. It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the United States suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$929 million. Experts has recommended several prevention methods to overcome phishing.

Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites
Microsoft's IE7 browser, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.2, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing measure. Firefox 2 used Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from PhishTank and GeoTrust, as well as live whitelists from GeoTrust.

Eliminating phishing mail
Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails.

Password Rescue
This approach this proposed by Dinei Florencio, Cormac Herley in microsoft research. First, microsoft make no attempt to prevent information leakage. Rather, it try to detect and rescue users from the consequences of bad trust decisions. Second, microsoft harness scale against the attacker instead of trying to solve the problem at each client. The scheme increases in efficiency with the scale of deployment: it offers very little protection if a small fraction of users participate, but makes phishing almost impossible as the deployment increases.

Augmenting password logins
This is usually used by the banking industry. A bank's website ask users to select a personal image, and display this user-selected image with any forms that request a password. Users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter a password only when they see the image they selected.

references link(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci916037,00.html