Introduction
Jonny is a potential investor into an E-Commerce website and hopes to be able to create, manage and expand the website even as he takes safety measures to ensure that the website is safely operated and accessed from any location, including remote locations.
He therefore plans to spend an amount of $2 million into the project so as to gain a powerful and perfectly-operating website that may be able to eventually compete with top E-Commerce websites like PayPal (Duran, 2009).
This study seeks to identify the different ways in which Jonny may establish a successful and powerful website, its potential to expand, how he may be able to ensure its security and also how he should organize his budget so as to complete the whole process in the right way.
Executive Summary
Electronic commerce (E-Commerce) is the form of trade that involves buying and selling of products and services using such connections as the internet, LAN, WAN and other computer networks.
The process has also developed to include other processes such as online payment options where a client is able to pay for whatever they have bought online, market development, advertisement and marketing for products over the internet, products delivery services as well as many other trade-related activities that occur over the internet.
E-Commerce has been on the acceleration especially due to the vast technological advancements and innovations that have taken place over the recent past resulting to an unprecedented increase in the use of personal computers as well as internet activities.
With the developments that have been established in E-Commerce, internet users who wish to buy or sell products have been able to have an easy connection with each other from all over the world in such a manner that a seller is able to advertise and market for their products online, converse with the client, negotiate on prices and finally sell the product to the client even without them meeting or even seeing each other physically.
In the same way, a buyer is able to view online many products that he/she has an interest in from all over the world and from different sellers, compare prices, quality and other aspects of the products of interest, choose the one’s to purchase, make online payments and then get the products delivered physically to them.
These processes may take place from the comforts of one’s home or office, provided there is internet connection (Howard & LeBland, 2003).
For development of an E-Commerce website, there are different stages which need to be undertaken so as to endure that it is both effective and productive.
The main stages include market analysis, design of the website, pre-testing of the website operations, implementation of the website through hosting and launching, evaluation and modification to fit into users needs, management and upgrading (Lovell, 2010).
Every e-commerce website must be flexible such that, with the changes that occur every day in the technology world, it will be easily modified or upgraded to match the needs and specifications of the market at any given time.
In addition, using such facilities as search-engine optimization (SEO) and other marketing facilities increases the competitiveness of the company operating the E-Commerce website (Campanelli, 2006).
On the other side, there is a need for every E-Commerce website to have a built-in security application as well as apply other security measures to ensure secure operations at all times.
Through use of secure coding and other inbuilt security practices as well as use of an antivirus, an anti-phishing and anti-malware application and a firewall, the website may be operated free of hackers, harmful access and programs and in a trustworthy manner (Cobb, 2006; Howard & LeBland, 2003).
The E-Commerce Website Security Features
The E-Commerce websites, especially the ones dealing with online payments, have been faced with an increasing risk and vulnerability even as the E-Commerce industry increases and grows tremendously.
The industry has been marked by different vulnerabilities which include some basic risks such as virus attacks, information and path disclosure to the more complex and risky ones such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, price manipulation and buffer overflows.
It is important to note that however small a risk may appear, it may have adverse consequences and may result to eventual losses of revenue, lack of trust from customers or even shut-down of an e-commerce website (Mookhey, 2010).
There are different ways of overcoming these vulnerabilities so as to ensure that the websites operate securely and that they cannot be accessed by hackers and other unauthorized internet users or applications. First of all, it is important to ensure that a security system is integrated into the website during the initial design stage so ass for security to originate from the website architecture itself.
This form of security is the best and most effective one since it ensures that only the intended transactions and processes take place.
This form of security may include such measures as architecture modification, strict input validation routines, including a 3-tier modular architecture, ensuring high standards of cryptography especially the ones offered as open-source applications as well as any other forms of coding that are secure (Stallings, 1998).
Other security features that may be applied after the website has been developed and in its operations may include an internet security anti-virus, anti-phishing and anti-malware software applications which guard the website against attacks by unwanted and harmful applications present online.
In addition, a secure web server for the E-Commerce web server is an effective way of ensuring that the website operates securely. A firewall would also be appropriate to use for protection of the web server (Pfleeger, 1996).
The E-Commerce website to be developed for Jonny should hence employ the different aspects and features of ensuring there are secure operations and processes being carried out on the internet. This will ensure that potential customers have a trust on the website, it is able to fully take charge of everything within its operations and that there is control of those accessing the website.
Securely Managing the E-Commerce Website from a Remote Location
Laptops are the personal computers that are small and portable yet powerful enough to operate as desktop computers, and sometimes even better.
Since they are easy to carry and contain any required facilities of a PC such as word processing, document viewing and editing as well as internet connectivity especially through the use of modems, one may be able to use them for accessing websites and even managing them from any place around the world.
For one to ensure secure management of an e-commerce website from a remote location using a laptop, it is important to consider all the potential vulnerabilities that may be encountered and hence device a way of overcoming them (Khusia & McKegney, 2005).
First of all, the laptop should be protected from physical theft using the KSS slot and cable which makes sure that the laptop is secured to a bag, desk or any other place especially when travelling.
Another thing to consider would be the use of data encryption and password protection methods so as to protect the data within the laptop. The use of a firewall and cryptography security measures is also an important factor to ensure that a website is securely managed from a remote location (Cobb, 2006; Stallings, 1998).
Anti-Theft Protection for Johnny’s Laptops
Laptop theft is a major threat not only to an individual but also to the organizations they may be working in or managing, especially if they have information from such organizations stored on the laptops.
Such information may leak out to potentially harmful persons and may eventually be used to access top organization secrets and confidential data, steal from the individual or organization or even interfere with the organization’s operations and processes. The same may happen in a more devastating way when someone is managing an e-commerce website from the laptop.
There are different ways of countering laptop theft and its effects. These procedures may be either physical, helping overcome physical theft of the laptop or they may be internal and logical, helping avoid access to information within the laptop in case of successful theft of the laptop.
One of the most common methods of ensuring internal protection of a laptop is through the use of passwords, though this method has become very weak due to the increase in different ways of bypassing passwords that are present in the market.
A more reliable method of ensuring security of the information within the laptop is through the use of full-disc encrypting (FDE), a method that ensures that one cannot access the encrypted information without the user’s permission. A combination of FDE and passwords offers a higher level of data security.
In addition, the use of remote laptop security (RLS) method of laptop security which allows the computer owner to access their laptop from any other computer connected to the internet and hence helping hinder the access of data by the thief is a very effective method of ensuring data security.
A laptop owner may also need to employ a few measures to protect a laptop from physical theft. The Kensington security slot allows the laptop to be secured on a desk through a cable which ensures that the laptop cannot be easily stolen in the absence of its owner.
Other obvious security measures such as not leaving the laptop on a desk in an unsecure place, not leaving the laptop on the chair of a car with windows open and many other measures may help avoid laptop theft.
In addition, the use of laptop tracking systems that allow one to view the location of a stolen laptop through the use of GPS systems is an important feature that a laptop owner may invest in to allow recovery of a laptop.
Budget
With a total budget of $2 million intended for development and management of a website, the following budget breakdown was formulated so as to ensure the capital is adequately and sufficiently utilized.
The budget will include one-off expenses that will only be undertaken once in the establishment of the website as well as expenses that will appear annually or monthly (though they will be enumerated as annual expenses).
Some money will be set aside for acquisition of initial stock of products as well as for miscellaneous activities that may arise during the development or operation of the website but which were not initially budgeted for.
This will be important so as to ensure that no matter what challenge comes up, there will be enough funds to sail smoothly and continue operating (Lovell, 2010).
The budget has hence been approximated as follows. Since one cannot be so sure of how well the business will pick and give returns, the budget will cover a period of three years so as to make sure that all basic expenses for that period are actually catered for.
References
Campanelli, M. (2006). “How to Set Up an E-Commerce Site.” Entrepreneur. Web.
Cobb, M. (2006). How to secure an e-commerce Web site. Web.
Duran, C. (2009). How to Manage Growth in Ecommerce Marketing. Web.
Howard, M. & LeBland, D. (2003). Writing Secure Code, (2nd ed). New York: Microsoft Press.
Khusia, D. & McKegney, R. (2005). E-Commerce security: Attacks and preventive strategies. Web.
Lovell, M. (2010). E-Commerce: Set up. Web.
Mookhey, K. (2010). Common Security Vulnerabilities in e-commerce Systems. Web.
Pfleeger, P. (1996). Security in Computing (2nd ed).London: Prentice-Hall.
Stallings, W. (1998). Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice (2nd ed.). London; Prentice Hall.