Risk Factors in E-Commerce

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Risk Factors in E-Commerce

With more and more of consumers purchasing items over the internet and relying less and less on brick and mortar store, e-commerce has been a lucrative target for criminals. There is relatively less risk in being caught and prosecuted if a criminal targets potential victims through e-commerce. Crimes committed over e-commerce channels require specialized training to investigate and have the potential to over numerous agencies, jurisdictions and even countries. This crossing of judicial and governmental jurisdiction can often impede the investigation or even prevent prosecution. There are several other risk factors that effect e-commerce. The most critical risk factors have been identified in the areas of availability, performance, scalability, and security.

If your website is down, then you are not doing any business. The availability of your site is critical to your business reputation and ability to sell its services. Does the organization have the ability to quickly and effectively manage or mitigate issues that affect its availability? A developing trend for criminals is to perform a denial of service attack on a business. This is when a hacker has the ability to block access to your website. The hacker can either deny your ability to access your systems, deny consumers from accessing your system or both. Some organized crime elements have used this method to extort funds from business in order for the business to access their site. It is essential for business have the ability to mitigate the effectiveness of these attacks.

Performance of your site has to be up to par with your competitors. If your site is slow or reacts erratically, it is unlikely consumers w...

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...me type of finical assistance or insurance to help cover the expenses of breaches to your network or lose of consumer personal information?

Businesses today understand the importance and financial gains of e-commerce. That is why business invests heavily to ensure the consumers safety and build confidence in e-commerce. Dispute the numerous security measures and protocols, it is essential for business and consumers to stay aware of potential risks. The sad reality is that e-commence risk prevention is more reactive and proactive in nature. The safeguards in place are usually reactions to successful breaches.

Works Cited

Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2011). Essentials of Management Information Systems. Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Stout, G. (2011). Critical Risk Factors in an E-Commerce Enviroment. Rackspace Knowledge Center .

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