DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF DATA ENCRYPTION OF E-COMMERCE SECURITY

1.1 Introduction

Data encryption is part and parcel of the components of E-commerce where plain text (human readable format) is converted to cipher text (message in scrambled format) so that data in transit will not be easily deciphered by intruders. E-Commerce is one of the way through which many things can be streamlined and flexibility with convenience can be provided to users. But in the case of Online Shopping, many aspects will be confirmed by users due to threat of stealing of information. So that cyber security aspects must be considered while making all the transactions digital. E-commerce security is the protection of e-commerce assets from unauthorized access. The Internet-based electronic commerce is becoming an increasingly popular approach and a channel for people to search for information and purchase products or services through direct interaction with the online store (Park, C. & Kim, Y. 2003). Security is main concern of customer that is hampering the rapid growth of E-Commerce transactions. Security issues such as destruction, disclosure, and modification of data, denial of service, fraud, waste, and or abuse of network resources must be resolved in order to build trust of customers in the E-Commerce.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

In E-commerce system security hardware, software, and environment are the main critical and vulnerable points. Hardware security includes any devices used in running the E-commerce website like network devices, web servers, database servers and client’s computer. Securing the network with a properly configured firewall device that is only allowing ports needed for accessing the e-Commerce website is an essential part of network security.

Although online purchasing tool should be suitable for all kinds of products, however, in terms of the worldwide aspects, online grocery purchasing still has low competition compared to other kinds of products, so also in Nigeria. Although Nigeria has a high percentage of Internet users as well as a well-developed e-commerce market there are e-commerce markets that are still lagging. Recent years, the online grocery market in Nigeria has been developing. Since 2013, an increasing number of online sales of food products starts to grow. Online grocery sales raised by 38 percent compared to previous year and there are more than one in five Swedish consumers has experienced purchasing grocery products online (E-commerce News, 2014). Besides, the leading grocery retail in Nigeria ICA launched their new online store at the end of 2014 and COOP also updated their online stores to expand product categories and range to attract more potential consumers. Although the many options given to the consumers, PostNord states in the report E-commerce in the Nordics 2016 that “While sales of daily commodities have grown very strongly in recent years, the category remains small.” Therefore, one can easily see that the online grocery industry is developing and popularizing, but still seems limited while looking at other industries (PostNord, 2016).

Internet today has a great importance in a lot of people's everyday lives, not least for pleasures such as shopping. Among Swedish consumers online shopping is something frequently used, and statistics from 2016 show that nine out of ten Internet users have at some time used Internet for a purchase (E-commerce News, 2016). A huge amount of previous research focused on some fashionable industries such as clothing, cosmetics, books, electrical appliance etc, which are frequently ordered products (Young Kim, E. & Kim, Y, 2004; Bian, Q. & Forsythe, S, 2012). Compared to these types of products, online grocery shopping has not grown so big and few previous literatures has been explored in this field, which arises our interests in devoting a not so developed area. The low level of consumer adoption makes it interesting to explore different factors that could affect consumers’ choices on online grocery shopping in Nigeria (Sullivan, P. & Heitmeyer, J, 2008; Bakewell, C. & Mitchell, V, 2003; Belleau, B.,et al, 2007), however, the range of previous research target is broad and in this study, the authors aim to narrow the range of explored group. Therefore, Swedish families with children constitute the target group for this study. The characteristics of families with children would have distinct buying intention compared to other type of groups as the desired need for them would change.

The operating system is the main aspect of security that should be configured properly so as to take care of security vulnerability. Software and routinely released patches should be regularly updated to fix holes in security. The website development itself should ensure protection against attacks like cookie poisoning, hidden-field manipulation, parameter tampering, buffer overflow, and cross-site scripting. Website pages, where confidential information is being entered, should be secured with strong cryptography algorithm.

This study could generate relevant knowledge for grocery retailers, since offering online grocery shopping could be a new way for retailers to make money. More knowledge about what their potential customer’s value could therefore help them boosting their sales and profitability. This arouses an interest for taking the understandings about consumers’ online grocery shopping preferences one step further.

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1.3 Statement of the Problems

Investigation reveals the following problems of the existing Data Encryption of E-Commerce Security System;

1. The customers have to queue for a long period of time before getting their desired product or goods from the grocery seller, which makes shopping within the store very stressful.
2. Most of the customers prefer shopping outside the grocery store, maybe where they come from they have not witness queuing to shop.
3. The customers have to spend all their time just to purchase an item in the store shop which is not right, all because of the manual approach towards grocery shopping.

The problem is security. The password method used in almost all commercial operating systems is probably not very strong against a sophisticated or unsophisticated attacker.

The choice of data encryption comes next in the minds of those that want reduction of unauthorized access on confidential files or data. Security provided by the computer operating systems come with a preset super user account and password.

The super user may have a password to control network functionality, another to conduct or access nightly backups, create accounts, and so on. For a cracker, logging on to a system as the super user is possibly the best way to collect data or do damage. If the super user has not changed an operating system’s preprogrammed passwords, the network is vulnerable to attack.

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1.4 Aim and Objective of The Study

The aim of this new design is to develop online software that will support the Data Encryption in an E-Commerce Security System stated above. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were considered:

1. To design application software that will be used to securely purchase an item online by the interested personnel.
2. To design application software that will update new products like grocery items and other related items online using data encryption algorithm.
3. To design software that will be used to make series of grocery shopping online by the several personnel.
4. To design software that will be used to research about products and make purchases for desired item.
5. To apply data encryption security features to the e-Commerce application for a grocery store online shopping.

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1.5 Significance of the Study

Data security in these contemporary times is a must. For your secrets to be secure, it may be necessary to add protections not provided by your computer operating systems. The built-in protections may be adequate in some cases. If no one ever tries to break into or steal data from a particular computer, its data will be safe. Or if the intruder has not learned how to get around the simple default mechanisms, they’re sufficient.

The importance of this study is to use object oriented development processes and techniques in the E-commerce online grocery store system. Formal analysis and design were used to give adequate understanding to the object-oriented technique used. The major quest is to ease the problem and stress encountered in customers grocery shopping experience and keeping records of stock list, customer lists, sales volume, and summary report.

This project will be of benefit to:

1. Enterprises.
2. Shopping Malls/Supermarkets.

Besides, the study will serve as reference material for subsequent researcher in the field or related topics.

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1.6 Scope of Study

This research work will concentrate on the Data Encryption of E-Commerce Security using an online grocery store as a case study.

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1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research Material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent Power Failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

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1.8 Definition of Terms

E-commerce: E-commerce can be described as the using of electronic networks, such as Internet, as a distribution channel. The involved parties can be either individuals or organizations and a common sectioning to do is to differ between business-to-consumer and business-to-business (Khosrow-Pour, M. 2006).

Encryption: A process of converting data/information into another form.

Decryption: A process of converting data/information (multimedia) back to its Original form.