Internet Security measures

To prevent the various security threats many security measures are taken. Some of them are discussed below: 

Antivirus software 

Antivirus software is a computer program that detects, prevents and takes action to remove the malicious codes like viruses, worms and Trojan horses from the infected system. To protect your computer one needs good antivirus software. A system without antivirus software can easily be targeted by malicious code within a short span of time on Internet. The problems and damage that are caused by an infection can be extremely varied. The infection may be simple as causing strange noises, pop-ups and other annoying things on the system. It may delete the files and slow down the system or also can damage the hardware or destroy the entire computer system. Once a system is infected by virus, it will spread by attaching to other programs and files within the system. Viruses not only replicates itself within the system but can also spread to other systems by taking control of the users email and sending out copies of itself to those in the users contacts list.  The most common way a system is attacked is through infected attachments to email. These attachments can be in the form of pictures, videos, sound clips or any other type of file that can be attached to an email. Infections can also spread through downloads. To prevent harm to the system, the antivirus software scans the downloaded files and the entire computer system in order to detect the presence of an infection. Today, there is antivirus software for mobile devices also due to prevalent use of Internet on these devices. A large range of antivirus software is available in the market. Antivirus software is critical to be installed and kept updated regularly on the computer. 

Firewall 

Companies having their own websites have to control the access to the network both inside and outside the company network. The most commonly used network protection barrier between the company’s network and the outside world is a Firewall. A firewall is a device (a computer or a router) placed between the network and the Internet to monitor and control the traffic between the company’s local network and the outside world. The primary goal of a firewall is to keep intruders away from the company’s E-commerce infrastructure. It ensures that the company’s crucial data is kept safe and not accessed by the intruders.  A firewall protects the local network against the following: 

Email services that sometimes create problems. 

Undesirable material like photos, videos entering into local network. 

Unauthorized persons gaining access to local network. 

Unauthorized data or information leaving the company’s network. 

Protects from any type of network attack.  

Digital Certificate 

Digital Certificate or Digital ID is used for providing our identity in electronic transactions. Just as we have a driving license or a passport to prove our identity in the real world, with a digital Certificate, we can assure the business organizations, online services and friends that the electronic information they receive from us are authentic.  Digital Certificate is issued by a trusted third party to establish the identity of the holder. The third party who issued certificates is known as a Certificate Authority (CA). Digital Certificate contains the holder’s name, a serial number, expiration dates, a copy of the certificate holder’s public key which is used for encrypting messages and digital signatures, and the digital signature of the certification authority so that a receiver can verify that the certificate is real. 

Cryptography 

Cryptography is an art of protecting the information by transforming it into an unreadable form.  Encryption is the transformation of normal text known as “plain text” into unreadable or secret text known as “cipher text” using encryption algorithm.  A secret key is used to encrypt and decrypt a message. It does not hide the text but converts it into other text that does not make any meaning.  Its purpose is to ensure privacy by keeping the information hidden from anyone on the Internet except the receiver of the message. Messages are encrypted just before they are sent on the Internet or network. When the encrypted message is received by the receiver, it needs to be decrypted. Decryption is the reverse of encryption. It is the transformation of encrypted text back into normal text. There are number of encryption algorithms available in the market today. In recent years, number of cases has been reported where the data in transit was intercepted. Encryption is used to protect data in transit, for example data being transferred via networks like Internet or E-commerce, mobile telephones, Bluetooth devices and bank Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). 

 When the message is received by the friend, it can be decoded with the help of the key. Anyone else who sees the message in transit will only see weird characters. The key kept here is simple, but usually they are quite long.  For E-commerce security various protocols are also used. Below given is the explanation to understand SSL protocol: 

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)  

Now-a-days every user sends various types of data from email to credit card details. The user would want this data to be protected when in transit over a public network.SSL protocol is used for securing web transactions on the Internet. It was developed by Netscape. During the E-commerce transaction, all the information is exchanged in secured manner using SSL by encrypting all the messages. It also provides the authentication of the merchant or shopper using a digital certificate so that the customer knows that they are communicating with a valid owner. To identify whether a site is secured, a security logo is present on the screen. If a site is secured by VeriSign, then the security logo of VeriSign is displayed on the login screen of the secured site. On clicking, the owner information and the validity of the certificate is displayed. This indicates that the communication with this site is secured and the owner of the website is valid who is certified by the authority like VeriSign. The other indication of the security is that whenever connection is made to the secured site its address starts from https:// rather than http://.