A REAL WORLD CASE SCENARIO

A computer hacking incident occurred at Data Processors International, a firm

that processes credit card transactions for retailers, when a hacker broke into the
computer system and gained access to approximately 8 million credit card numbers
belonging to consumers.

ANALYSIS
The emergence of electronic commerce has brought in its wake some major
security concerns. Electronic Payment has dominated and attracted much attention in
recent times as all major stakeholders, thus payment operators, electronic card
manufacturers as well as and cardholders continue to seek for effective means of
combating the threats of internet frauds and more especially credit card frauds. Of the
security issues facing banks everywhere, prevention of credit cards frauds has always
been a high priority
According to Sandra Stammberger, Commerce and technology, combined as
a one Package – this is what online credit cards are. With the advent of Internet, the
knowledge And communication barriers were broken. Also, with Internet, came the
concept of e-Shops or virtual shops that existed only on the Internet. You could shop at
these shops by Making use of their online credit card payment-acceptance ability. Once
the online credit Card payments were verified and approved, the goods got delivered to
your door. This is What we call convenience at its best (EzineArticles.com, 2006)
The widespread dependence on networking and the web leaves our
organizations vulnerable to malicious attacks that may threaten our data and its
security . Hackers can utilize many types of information to break through web
applications. The individual exploits in this case study were minor, but when combined,
they resulted in severe vulnerabilities.