The Role Of Security In Cyberpreneurship

Introduction

Cyberpreneurship is a step or a way to promote a product / service via internet technology, this business venture is promoted using electronic brochures, known as the homepage on the internet. Cyberpreneurship is an entrepreneurial spirit that utilizes the Internet media. Most fundamentally, cyberpreneurship represents the realization of digital, as opposed to paper-based, commercial transactions between businesses, between a business and its consumers, or between a government and its citizens or constituent business. Before the existence of cyberpreneurship, traditional commerce was in place which is the exchange or buying and selling of commodities; esp. the exchange of merchandise, on a large scale, between different places or communities; extended trade or traffic. One of the major concerns of cyberpreneurship is the area of security. Security can be defined as the level of protection from, or assurance from, harm. It applies to any vulnerable or profitable resource. Most people are skeptical when it comes to trading online because there are a lot of factors to consider like, trusting the merchant to deliver, cyber fraud and so on. The role of security cannot be over emphasized when cyberpreneurship is in play.

Review of Security in Cyberpreneurship from 1970-1980

The 1970s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1970, and ended on December 31, 1979. Economically the 1970s began in the midst of a minor recession. The method of creating awareness for people’s business was through advertisement and ad billings were flat in the first year of the decade, then slowly took off, growing in progressively larger increments after 1976. Political events of the 1970s also contributed to the decades unrest. In spite of an economy slowed by economic pressures and political unrest, by the middle of the decade billings at the top agencies and total ad expenditures increased faster than the gross national product, inflation or any other economic indicator. The American Association of Advertising Agencies estimated that during the 1970s, an average American consumer was exposed to 1,600 ads per day, although fewer than 80 ads were consciously noticed, and only 12 provoked some type of reaction. Advertising was an integral part of American culture. By the beginning of the 1970s, TV viewing had emerged as a core experience of American culture. The growing trend toward the use of TV as a preferred ad medium continued throughout the decade. In 1976, with more than 69 million U. S. homes owning at least one TV set and viewing-per-home topping six hours per day, advertiser spending reached nearly $5. 9 billion. Marketers in the 1970s looked for accountability and efficiency in their ad agencies, and campaigns used "positioning" as a more scientific technique for placing ads in the minds of consumers. Throughout the ad industry, the use of computer technology grew, reflecting a rediscovery of and growing emphasis on "empirical advertising"—research and fact-based marketing—during the decade. This practice was a reaction to the "creative revolution" of the 1960s and indicated a marked shift to a preference for discipline and accountability.

Issues

The early years of the decade also brought an increased threat of government regulation, triggered largely by concerns that advertising was capitalizing on the inability of children to distinguish between commercials and programs. TV advertisers were spending millions of dollars annually pitching products to children. Advertising also faced criticism that it was engaging in subliminal "sexual embedding.

Role of Security in Cyberpreneurship (1980-1989)

During this time period, ATM Machines and Credit cards laid down the foundation for the growing world of e-commerce. The Boston Computer Exchange and Minitel become among some of the first most notable e-commerce platforms in the world. The United States (US) National Science Foundation (NSF) limits use of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) for academic purposes only. Shopping online commenced when UK entrepreneur Michael Aldrich connected his computer to his phone line and 26-inch tube TV in a Sussex Industrial Estate in 1979 and activated a simple program he called “Teleshopping” Online shopping was invented and pioneered in 1979 by Michael Aldrich in the United Kingdom. He connected a modified domestic television via a telephone line to a real-time multi-user transaction processing computer. The system was marketed beginning in 1980 and offered mainly business-to-business systems that were sold in the UK, Ireland, and Spain. One the earliest consumer shopping experiences was Book Stacks Unlimited.

The 1980sIn the 1980s, the public’s awareness of computer technology was growing quickly, and popular culture was beginning to take note, most understood what these exciting developments really meant in only the vaguest of terms. The internet was still in its conceptual infancy, but the writing was on the wall. Computers were going to change everything, we just didn’t know exactly how yet. While the B2C (business to consumer) eCommerce marketplace of the 1980s was basically nonexistent, some B2B (business to business) headway had already been made, but only on an extremely rudimentary level. It is certainly worth noting that in 1984, British grocery super brand Tesco did bring us the world’s first online shopping basket, its first B2C online shopping system, and the world’s first B2C customer: British pensioner Jane Snowball.

Role of E-business Owners

• Trading partners could transfer orders, invoices and other business transactions using a data format that met the ANSI ASC X12, the predominant set of standards in North America. Once an order is sent, it is then examined by a VAN (Value-Added Network) and finally directed to the recipient’s order processing system. EDI allowed the transfer of data seamlessly without any human intervention.
• These include, authentication and encryption mechanisms, privacy seals, disclosures, and firewalls· Online retailers must make easily accessible security seal (also known as third-party assurance seal), privacy and security policies, and other security evidence on their sites.

Role of Customers in Security

Most users of e-commerce sites are aware that their information is stored by the sites, and are concerned about the security of their data on these sites and the possibility of their information to be transferred to third party without their knowledge or permission. Yet only few of them make effort to always check the security and privacy policies of the sites before making purchases. This suggests that the innate desire by most customers for security does not go beyond mere expectation and should be satisfied by a third-party. Customers expect web retailers to be solely responsible for their security. · Customers should educate themselves on how security technologies used for securing e-commerce infrastructures work.

Objectives of Security

Confidentiality describes the state in which data is protected from unauthorized disclosure, e. g. a loss of confidentiality occurs when the content of a communication or a file is disclosed.

• Integrity means that the data has not been altered or destroyed, which can be done accidentally (e. g. transmission errors) or with malicious intent (e. g. sabotage).
• Availability refers to the fact that authorized persons can access data and systems within an appropriate period of time. Reasons for loss of availability may be attacks or instabilities of the system.
• Accountability: If the accountability of a system is guaranteed, the participants of a communication activity can be sure that their communication partner is the one he or she claims to be. Thus, the communication partners can be held accountable for their actions.

The Role of Security in Cyberpreneurship from the 1990’s-2000

Mr Walt Tirenin and Mr. Don Faatz in their paper focused on the protection of computer-based information and systems in the DARPA IA program. The IA’s program focused majorly on the defense against Computer Network Attack (CNA). CNA is defined in Joint Pub 3-13 as the process of disrupting, refusing, de-valuing or erasing any information that is present in computers, networks of computers or the computer and the networks themselves[1].

Issues

In the 90’s, the US had important information-based resources that were at stake and these included a high structured management system and infrastructure which involved how the electric power, flow of money, air traffic, oil and gas and many other important information where controlled. They also had a lot of allies and potential partners and were increasing with time. A lot of competitors constantly attempted to damage the systems that they have put to secure the information using IW techniques which was able to leak the information. These competitors also tried to bypass their technological and material strengths and they chose to come after the strategic vulnerabilities within the US or any of their partners. Many other opponents exploited the use of cyberspace weapons and to come after the strategies that had previously been put in place. The DARPA IA’s program payed much attention to the strategic level of the cyber warfare that attacked the US homeland. In the 90’s National military regarded information warfare threat as another form of terrorism and deadly weapons. As a result of Cyber warfare, the pleasant benefits from the geographical isolation were taken away and prior to that, the defensive measures that have been put in place were no more reliable. It is a lot cheaper to attack once and more expensive to defend because it takes the only once to be successful only once but the defender must constantly put strategies in place.

The Way Forward

DETERANCE: this is a fundamental component for a strategic cyber defense. This is the first order defense objective that does not have plans to be aggressive. Other strategies that come after this was as a result of the failure of this strategy. For this strategy to work efficiently, the potential antagonists must be fully aware of the type of risk ahead if they should try anything. Traditionally, this strategy had been employed to easily figure out these antagonists and punish them quickly and severely. The sole aim of this method was to make the attacker believe that the cost of penetrating in the cyberspace is high or that the hack would likely fail than succeed. The system also had to apply some protective measures such as restorative and corrective techniques to be able to heal its self or retrieve some of the damaged documents thereby reducing the effect of the attack.

DEFENSE-IN-DEPTH: the goal of this strategy is to employ a layered combination of different techniques in other to strengthen the weak methods by the stronger methods. But, trustworthy systems can be started from untrustworthy components. However, the implications of this strategy can be systemic in nature. This strategy assumes that the hacker would not mind the expenses it would take to breach the cyberspace. He would go at any length to get what he wants. At the moment the protective measure has been breached, it would be of great importance to properly detect what manner of breach it is and to what extent. It is not likely to get the attacker if he is extremely secretive. Also, an attack at large scale would not easily be detected with this strategy. The basic idea behind this strategy is to avoid repeating silly mistakes because an intentional and motivated attacker would always find a way to complete his objectives.

DECEPTION: the deception objective for strategic cyber defense is to create many confusing and unsure locations for the information storage that would distract these attackers. This method should be constantly changing so that it would be more confusing to the attacker so that misdirection would occur. This strategy should also be supported by other strategies like deterrence which tends to create an impression of security and when deterrence fails, deception strategy should be able to mislead these attackers.

Issues and Challenges

When it comes to a choice of a password, an easy one should be used right? Wrong! Anything you can easy generate can be generated easily by another person, worse a person who wants to do something bad with the informationWay forwardA strong password that doesn’t relate the individual like name, date of birth should be used, definition of a strong password is a mixture of uppercase letter, lower case number, numbers and special character.

Losing Control of Software AccessCompanies can lose sight of who has access to a particular site of the company which isn’t the best. Not being able to hold someone responsible for a mishap in site can open the floor for anyone to cause one, especially a disgruntled employee. Way forwardOnly specific people should access to sensitive site of the company and they should be given access only when they want to get work done. Website or Application should have audit trail to track how login and what they did when the logged in Educate employee that it’s safe to jump on the company Wi-Fi with non-secure devices. The same goes for teaching employees how to surf smart and not click on links or open emails that could infect the entire network. If the small business houses a lot of sensitive data, for example customers' social security numbers and bank accounts, it should have two-factor login authentication turned on.

Conclusion

From use of the television in the 1970s for advertisements to use of teleshopping as it was invented in the 1980s and used for business to business transactions. Also, through invention of the world's 1st online shopping basket in Britain by the British super brand Tesco to the advent of internet banking, cyberpreneurship has become a major tool in the world of business as we know it today. The integrity of the massive transactions and information that are exchanged everyday over the internet needs to be highly recommendable to encourage the continuous use of the cyber space for business. Security therefore plays a major role to ensure this integrity, and an insurance of safety while practicing cyberpreneurship via authentication, confidentiality amongst many other methods.