A QUICK INFORMATION GUIDE ON

E-commerce,
Cloud computing
and Cyber
security
A look at the concept, opportunities and
threats
Zainab Aftab
E-commerce
DEFINATION

Ecommerce is a method of buying and selling goods

and services online. The definition of ecommerce
business can also include tactics like affiliate
marketing. You can use ecommerce channels such as
your own website, an established selling website like
Amazon, or social media to drive online sales.
The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used
interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes
used in reference to the transactional processes that
make up online retail shopping.
The last two decades, widespread use of e-
commerce platforms such as Amazon and
eBay has contributed to substantial growth
in online retail. In 2011, e-commerce
accounted for 5% of total retail sales,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By
2020, with the start of the COVID-19
pandemic, it had risen to over 16% of retail
sales.
How does E commerce works?
E-COMMERCE IS POWERED BY THE INTERNET. CUSTOMERS
ACCESS AN ONLINE STORE TO BROWSE THROUGH AND PLACE
ORDERS FOR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES VIA THEIR OWN DEVICES.

AS THE ORDER IS PLACED, THE CUSTOMER'S WEB BROWSER WILL

COMMUNICATE BACK AND FORTH WITH THE SERVER HOSTING
THE E-COMMERCE WEBSITE. DATA PERTAINING TO THE ORDER
WILL BE RELAYED TO A CENTRAL COMPUTER KNOWN AS THE
ORDER MANAGER. IT WILL THEN BE FORWARDED TO DATABASES
THAT MANAGE INVENTORY LEVELS; A MERCHANT SYSTEM THAT
MANAGES PAYMENT INFORMATION, USING APPLICATIONS SUCH
AS PAYPAL; AND A BANK COMPUTER. FINALLY, IT WILL CIRCLE
BACK TO THE ORDER MANAGER. THIS IS TO MAKE SURE THAT
STORE INVENTORY AND CUSTOMER FUNDS ARE SUFFICIENT FOR
THE ORDER TO BE PROCE

AFTER THE ORDER IS VALIDATED, THE ORDER MANAGER

WILL NOTIFY THE STORE'S WEB SERVER. IT WILL DISPLAY A
MESSAGE NOTIFYING THE CUSTOMER THAT THEIR ORDER
HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY PROCESSED. THE ORDER
MANAGER WILL THEN SEND ORDER DATA TO THE
WAREHOUSE OR FULFILLMENT DEPARTMENT, LETTING IT
KNOW THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE CAN BE DISPATCHED TO
THE CUSTOMER. AT THIS POINT TANGIBLE OR DIGITAL
PRODUCTS MAY BE SHIPPED TO A CUSTOMER, OR ACCESS
TO A SERVICE MAY BE GRANTED.
PLATFORMS THAT HOST E-COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS
INCLUDE ONLINE MARKETPLACES THAT SELLERS SIGN UP
FOR, SUCH AS AMAZON; SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SAAS)
TOOLS THAT ALLOW CUSTOMERS TO "RENT" ONLINE STORE
INFRASTRUCTURES; OR OPEN SOURCE TOOLS THAT
COMPANIES MANAGE USING THEIR IN-HOUSE DEVELOPERS.

Table 1.0

The different types of e-commerce are classified by the

parties participating in online transactions.
ANALYSIS OF E-
commerce
OPPORTUNITIES
Here are two Opportunities for the eCommerce market:
Growing Market
One of the biggest opportunities for the online shopping industry is
the growing market. While most consumers in developed countries
already have electronic devices, there are plenty of consumers in
developing countries who don’t — and, as result, don’t buy goods
online. As the prices of electronics continue to decline, it’s likely that
we’ll see an increase in the number of potential internet shoppers.
This will subsequently result in a greater volume of eCommerce sales.
 INFLUENCERS

There are a number of internet users who use their large social
followings to promote various goods and services. These people,
known as influencers, present a powerful marketing opportunity.
for savvy eCommerce sellers.
With social media becoming such a huge part of our everyday
lives, influencers are set to play an increasingly important role in
how products are marketed — and eCommerce stores are best
positioned to take advantage of this.
THREATS
HERE ARE FOUR THREATS FOR THE E-COMMERCE
INDUSTRY:

Competition
Although the eCommerce industry’s low barrier to entry is, on the
one hand, Strength, it also poses a significant threat for existing
sellers. This is because of how easy it is for just about anyone —
anywhere — to launch a new eCommerce store and compete with
other online shopping businesses. It’s important to know that this
element of competition doesn’t affect the success of the eCommerce
industry as a whole, but affects individual businesses.
 Fraud
The world of eCommerce is fuelled by digital payments,
whether that involves credit or debit cards, bank
transfers, or even cryptocurrencies. This makes it a huge
target for fraudsters, who now have an easy way to cash
out on their illicit activities. Fraudsters can buy goods
online using others’ payment details — while staying
completely anonymous — and send those items to
neighborhood doorsteps, where they’ll be swiped while
the homeowner is out at work. Unfortunately, it’s
incredibly difficult to combat internet fraud, which is
why it’s such a big threat for the industry.
 Data concerns
Aside from blatant fraud, there’s a lot of potential for things to go
wrong with online shopping — especially when it comes to users
data. Shopping online requires you to hand over a lot of sensitive
data, including your payment details, address, and other assorted
information. If this information gets into the wrong hands, it can
have devastating consequences. Also, since the introduction of new
data-related regulations like the European Union’s GDPR, there are
new complexities in the data aspects of running an online business.

 Monopolies

Since eCommerce stores can cater to entire countries — or even

the entire world — it leaves lot of potential for monopolies to
form. Perhaps the best example of this is if you review how
Amazon has affected bookstores. In the past, a variety of local
bookstores (including mom and pop stores, smaller chains, and
larger chains) would have serviced a given area. With the advent
of huge eCommerce alternatives like Amazon, these stores are
dying off and Amazon is becoming the one-stop-shop for books.
This trend may spread into other markets, and may at some point
warrant government regulation.
 OVERALL, THE ECOMMERCE INDUSTRY IS IN STRONG
POSITION BUT DEFINITELY FACING SOME DOWNSIDES. ITS
STRENGTHS INCLUDE ACCESSIBILITY AND LOW PRICES —
WHICH ALLOW CONSUMERS TO SHOP WHEREVER AND
WHENEVER, AT CHEAPER PRICES THAN USUAL. THE MAIN
WEAKNESS OF ONLINE SHOPPING IS THAT IT DOESN’T LEND
ITSELF SO WELL TO SOME INDUSTRIES (SUCH AS APPAREL),
SINCE CONSUMERS CAN’T BUY BEFORE THEY TRY.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE THANKS TO THE SWOT ANALYSIS
OF ONLINE SHOPPING, OPPORTUNITIES FOR ECOMMERCE
INCLUDE A GROWING DIGITAL MARKET AND THE POWER OF
INTERNET INFLUENCERS. HOWEVER, A MULTITUDE OF
THREATS — INCLUDING COMPETITION, FRAUD, DATA
CONCERNS, AND THE POTENTIAL FOR MONOPOLIES — WILL
NEED TO BE MONITORED. DOING SO WILL LIKELY REQUIRE
GOVERNMENT REGULATION, CLEVER BUSINESS PRACTICES,
AND CLOSE ATTENTION TO DETAIL.

Cloud Computing

Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of

computing services—including servers, storage,
databases, networking, software, analytics, and
intelligence—over the internet (“the cloud”) to offer
faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of
scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use,
helping you lower your operating costs, run your
infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your
business needs change.
BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Cost
Moving to the cloud helps companies optimize IT
costs. This is because cloud computing eliminates
the capital expense of buying hardware and
software and setting up and running onsite
datacenters—the racks of servers, the round-the-
clock electricity for power and cooling, and the IT
experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up
fast.
Speed
Most cloud computing services are provided self
service and on demand, so even vast amounts of
computing resources can be provisioned in
minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks,
giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking
the pressure off capacity planning.
Global
The benefits of cloud computing services
include the ability to scale elastically. In
cloud speak, that means delivering the
right amount of IT resources—for
example, more or less computing power,
storage, bandwidth—right when they’re
needed, and from the right geographic
location.
Productivity
Onsite datacenters typically require a lot
of “racking and stacking”—hardware setup,
software patching, and other time-
consuming IT management chores. Cloud
computing removes the need for many of
these tasks, so IT teams can spend time
on achieving more important business
goals.
Performance
The biggest cloud computing services run
on a worldwide network of secure
datacenters, which are regularly upgraded
to the latest generation of fast and efficient
computing hardware. This offers several
benefits over a single corporate datacenter,
including reduced network latency for
applications and greater economies of
scale.
Reliability
Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery, and
business continuity easier and less expensive because data can
be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s
network.

Security
Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies,
and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping
protect your data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.
SWOT ANALYSIS ON
CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing is defined as "future of internet" and has the potential to be
widespread in the world
At the underlying philosophy of cloud computing lays the wide usage area of
Internet. In the course of time, the numbers of companies increase for using cloud
computing.
In the past, users used to download software and ran it on their personal
computer. Later on servers began to give this service in a faster and more reliable
way.
Whereas internet begins to use all over the world effectively, cloud computing
begins to more popular.
Because of that, attributes of cloud computing should be analyzed.
SWOT analysis which is one of the analysis methods to find attributes of a system
finds out strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of cloud computing in a
systematic way. Assessments of SWOT analysis are depicted in Table I:
 internal origin is consists of strengths and weaknesses of a cloud computing svstem.
Strength areas
• preserved and managed
carefully. It not these areas may pass through weaknesses easily
Weaknesses also are in the internal areas Cloud computing service providers or administrators should manage
these areas with proper and enfectve metnods not on v to keen threats awav from the svstem but alsc to
transtorm these weaknesses areas to the strength
areas. On the other hand weakness areas should be monitored ever time and prevent from transforming to the
threats.
Internal origin areas can be controlled by cloud computing service providers or administrators with a right
strategy. But cloud computing service providers
o conlo ine exteman areas
External origin is consists of opportunities and threats of a cloud combuting svstem.
Managing
• external origin is more ditticult than
internal origin because of depending to out of cloud computing system. Therefore external origin cannot be
controlled all time directly. Thus administrators of cloud computing should be aware of external origins
Tront strateoles and memoas
opportunities can be taken
Threats should be monitored and analvzed ever time because they are not onlv harmfu but also in the external
origin side. Cloud computer providers and administrators should get under contro the threats Especially
information security threats must be suppressed with attention. If external origin areas cannot be managed,
there is no benefit of strength

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Cloud computing may be used more

effectively if the tollowing methods can
be carried out:
1) Bandwith should be arranged to the
needs of the cloud computing system
before working with cloud computing
system
2)Data should be categorized as
public, secret,
top secret etc. before uploading
cloud computing svstem. Secret or
top secret data must be received
or sent in encrypted networks with
efficient encryption methods.
3)According to the data's category,
public or
private deployment model must be
chosen. Private deployment model
must be chosen if data have special
attributes
4) Allot the annlications.
databases and hardware
in cloud computing system
should be worked properly
with multicenter structure
instead of centralized
5) Thin client should be used for end
users
because of its less complicated. low
cost and high performance attributes.
The SWOT analysis shows that cloud
computing may not renace win al
conveniona information sustems
but will be an opumum soluton or
miormation svstems that need to
manage bio data
Cyber Security
 Cyber Security
Cyber security is the application of technologies,
processes, and controls to protect systems,
networks, programs, devices and data from cyber
attacks.
It aims to reduce the risk of cyber attacks and
protect against the unauthorised exploitation of
systems, networks, and technologies.
Types of cyber
The most common types of cyber threats include:

security Hacking
Social Engineering
Physical Security Attacks
Viruses and Malware
(malicious software)
Ransomware attacks
CYBER SECURITY
Cyber security is the practice of defending
computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic
systems, networks, and data from malicious
attacks. It's also known as information
technology security or electronic information
security. The term applies in a variety of
contexts, from business to mobile computing,
and can be divided into a few common
categories.
What are the types
of cyber security
Multiple types of cybersecurity work together to protect an
organization’s IT environment. Types of cybersecurity
include:
1. Network security
2. Application security
3. Endpoint security including Internet of Things (IoT)
security
4. Data security
5. Identity and access management (IAM)
6. Database and infrastructure security
7. Cloud and mobile device security
8. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning
What to expect in 2023
We can’t predict the future, but one certainty
remains: the number of cyberattacks will
continue to increase in 2023. The costs of
cyberattacks will also increase due to several
factors: worldwide inflation, energy crisis,
geopolitical conflicts, and expansion of the
organizations’ attack surfaces. On the other
hand, crises can sometimes be seen as
opportunities, leading security vendors to
innovate in order to provide better products
and services. Moreover, organizations will
demand new and more powerful solutions to
face cyberattacks and reduce the risks.
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