Mobile Payment systems in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers' adoption strategies.

What is mobile payment?

A mobile payment system is defined as a method of payment that requires the use of a mobile device to conduct a transaction financially. Mobile payment also referred to as Web billing/mobile web payment. Most importantly, mobile payment system allowed us to conduct initial payment at any place and any time. Mobile payment has improved our living standard in daily life.

The Mobile payments model

Mobile payment can be divided into 2 types, which is refers as SMS based and Wap based.

SMS based – The payment request is sent via SMS with a short code in a form of sms messages. The payment is deducted directly from the prepaid system or added into the oncoming bill. The most popular activity conducted via sms based payment is refers to the purchasing of MMS, ringtones, pictures for mobile phones. It is widely applied in Malaysia and it is well known around the market.

Wap based – is a method which the users use web pages displayed on their mobile devices to make a payment. The advantages of using Wap based payment, it can lead to high customers’ satisfaction and it is ease to use. The examples of wap based payment: Credit card payment, Paypal and etc.

The potential of Mobile payments

Mobile payment systems allowed people to make transaction in anywhere and anytime, it brings convenience to us in daily life. Mobile payment industry can be growth dramatically in future because there are millions of potential users are still in the exploring and learning stage. Teenagers are the potential customers because they are more willing to try new products/services compare to older generation.

Adoption of the consumers

Although mobile payment system is popular around Malaysia, there are a lot of users are still having ambiguities. There are some factors which can become inhibitors if does not implicated nicely. Consumers are not fully adapted to the system due to uncertainty towards the systems. The adoption can be affected by the factors such as: lack of consumer trust, less of user friendly infrastructure, price, maturity of payment solutions, technology standards within the country, user comfort level, networks limitation, compatibility, security, and etc. The cost and the security are the main factors which can affect consumers’ decision. Furthermore, the reliability of the system will affect the adoption rate too.

Overall, mobile payment is a useful tools for us.

References:

- http://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/17668e643cc8df8fe1b9e83fbc33d7a76
- http://www.kpmg.co.th/Thought%20Leadership/Info.Comm.Ent/Mobile_payments.pdf

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_payment

Prepared by: Teo Muh Chow

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the sends out legitimate-looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. Phishing can attempting to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Normally, the messages appear to come from well know and trustworthy Web sites. Web sites that are frequently spoofed by phishers include Pay Pal, eBay, Yahoo, MSN and online banks are common targets. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical measures.

The email below is the example of phishing:

"Phishing" -- Sample bogus e-mail from Citibank:

Example for Pay Pal:Example for Wachovia email:

There are some menthods to prevent Phishing:

1. No attempt to prevent information leakage. Rather, try to detect and then rescue users from the consequences of bad trust decisions.

2. Harness scale against the attacker instead of trying to solve the problem at each client. Thus scheme increases in efficacy with the scale of deployment: it offers very little protection if a small fraction of users participate, but makes phishing almost impossible as the deployment increases.

3. Verifying the authenticity and security of Web sites, particulary EC sites.

4. Securing computer before shopping online by keeping antivirus, antispam, and firewall software up-to-date.

5. Never following directions asking you to reveal information or delete a file that is received in e-mail or pop-up messages from seemingly trusted companies.

6. Never replying to e-mail or pop-up messages from companies that ask for personal, financial, or password information.

7. Reviewing credit card and financial statements for unauthorized charges.

References:

- http://www.bankrate.com:80/brm/news/advice/Phishing-email.asp
- http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci916037,00.html
- http://www.wachovia.com/misc/1,,1856,00.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/phishing

Prepared by: Koh Kah Wang

A Review on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

Today, I am going to do a review on a post on Internet Security from E-Commerce blog.
In Facts, there are a lot of harmful threats on internet.

Some of the example of the threats:
-Hacker
-Malicious Code
-Spam
-Denial-of-service attack (DoS)
-Distributed Denial-of-service attack (DDoS)
-Virus
-Worms
-Trojan horse

What is Internet Security?
Internet security is the prevention of unauthorized access to our computer via internet. The security is consisting of encryption and password. There are many of the security applications/software has been developed to protect our computer from the threats. I discovered an interesting post from the E-commerze.blogspot which teaches us how to prevent our blogger blog for being hacked and how to recover our hacked blog.

Refer to the post: John Cow.com was hacked! And unhacked !

Tips to prevent out computer from being hacked:
There are few tips is provided for us to prevent our blogger from being hacked, we need to keep our personal information private and avoid to use a same password for different registration. We should put a password which is much more complicated (Alpha-numeric password) because it has a higher security level compare to homogeneous password.

We shouldn’t use our identity card numbers, home address, nickname, year of birth and whatever number which can be found by others easily. Try to avoid using a public computer to access any important websites because the security system of a public computer is not good enough to protect our private information. The most important tips is that we need to install anti-virus software to protect our computer from being hacked. Antivirus systems can help us to block and detect potential threat.

What is Antivirus system?
Antivirus software is computer programs that attempt to detect, identify, eliminate or neutralize malicious software. Nowadays, antivirus serve as functions such as to combat a wide range of threats including virus, worms, Trojan horse, phishing attack, malware and etc. There are few steps is executed by antivirus software, it is scanning, identifying, eliminating, quarantine, and Delete potential threats.

There are few popular antivirus software in the market, such as:
-Norton Anti Virus
-Panda software
-AGV antivirus
-Nod32 antivirus
-Spyware Doctor (anti Spyware)

Next, we will focus on how to recover a hacked blogger or website.

How to recover a hacked blogger or website?
There are 7 steps in the recovery process:

1)Regain control to your website.
2)Restore the data from backup file in diskette, CD, hard disk and etc.
3)Restore missing information.
4)Scan for the vulnerability.
5)Delete, block, or eliminate the vulnerability.
6)Remove/delete all suspicious file and send a copy to the antivirus software provider.
7)Periodically monitor your website activity after the recovery.

In facts, the steps above only can help us to recover our website from minor attacks. For those websites which is hacked seriously by professional hackers, there are lesser chance for us to recover it because we do not have sufficient software and techniques to resolve the problems. Hence, we need to seek for help from computer/software/IT experts to help us to regain access to a hacked website.
Internet security is very important for us because we conduct a lot of activity via internet. A lot of private information is transmitting across internet and a high level security system is a necessity to protect the users.

References:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_security
- http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security
- Turban, E., King, D., McKay, J., Marshall, P., lee, J., & Viehland, D.(2008). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective 2008 (International Edition). Upper Saddle River: Pearson-Education International.

Prepared by: Teo Muh Chow

How To Safeguard Our Personal And Financial Data

Nowadays, Internet is a public network of nearly 50,000 networks connecting millions of computers throughout the world. When we register to become a member of this website, we need to fill in some personal information. The information is including name, e-mail address, password, telephone and others.If online purchase, the company will record consumer information records such as names, addresses, phone numbers, bank and credit card account numbers and et-cetera.

Everyone who uses the computer will mostly keep their personal data and financial data in the computer. This is because many data can be stored inside the computer easily. However, this important data might be stolen by others (hackers) when the person surfs the internet by using the computer. Besides that, anyone can easily get access to the computer and knew the important data if the computer has no any security.

Here are a few approaches on how to safeguard our personal and financial data:

1) Do not reveal any personal information or particularly passwords to anyone. After using any of the Financial Data Center or member services, must remember to log out properly before leaving the Financial Data Center.

2) Securing data through non-repudiation. It ensures that a party in the dispute cannot refute a transaction that has occured. This is necessary especially to the business people.

3) Installing a firewall. It can also safeguard the computer from being hacked and important data being stolen. Firewall should be installed if the user will surf the internet quite often.

4) Keep credit cards to a minimum. Only keep the ones you actually use and destroy any that you no longer use by shredding them.

5) Avoid using passwords that are easy for someone to guess such as the name of your favorite pet, your date of birth, your name and others. Never write this information down and never carry it in your wallet or briefcase.

Above are some ways for safeguarding our important data. It is very essential so that our important data would not leak away. Prevention is better than cure. Therefore it is better to safeguard our data before it is being stolen.


References:

- http://amazingcommerce.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/how-to-safeguard-our-personal-and-financial-data/
- http://www.msisac.org/awareness/news/2007-03.cfm


Prepared By : Lee Boon Keat

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Online security can distinguish between two types of attacks; nontechnical attack and technical attack.

Nontechnical attack is an attack that uses some form of deception or persuasion to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise the security of a network. Social engineering is one of the nontechnical attacks that use social pressures to trick computer users into compromising computer networks. Phishing is an attack that attempt to trick individuals into revealing credentials. It is a technique that uses fraudulent e-mail messages that appear as legitimate business to gain personal information for purpose of theft. Nontechnical attack can be counter by education and training; policies and procedures; and penetration testing.

Technical attack is an attack perpetrated using software and systems knowledge or expertise. Examples of technical attack are denial of service (DOS) attack, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, virus, worm, macro virus or macro worm and Trojan horse.
 DOS is an attack that bombards system until it crashes or cannot respond. Attacker will uses specialized software to send flood of data packets to the target computer.
 Virus is pieces of software code that require host program be run to activate it. Virus will inserts itself into host and propagate when it spreads. Virus will delete files or corrupt the hard drive.
 Worm can spread itself without human intervention. It consumes the resources of its host in order to maintain itself, worm able to self-propagate and degrade network performance.
 Marco virus or macro worm is a virus or worm that executes when the application object that contains macro is opened or a particular procedure is executed.
 Trojan horse is a program that appears as useful function but contains hidden function that presents security risks. This program will allow other people to access and control a person’s computer over the internet.

Secure a data is troublesome for Internet users. There is no right to privacy at international borders, says by Chris Soghoian. Firewall and antivirus software installed will only protect against attacks from Internet. What happens when confidential files in laptop is lost or stolen.
Encrypt is one of the best and easy ways to protect our data. With Encrypting File System (EFS), we can protect private customer and financial information. When encrypt file or folder, it will turn into a format that can’t be read by other without the encryption key. This case appears to be an example of people simply bypassing existing rules. The article notes that an initial attempt to encrypt the data failed, and no further attempt was made.


References:

- www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=threatreport
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9935170-46.html
- http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/12/11/193220.php
- http://www.bio-itworld.com/BioIT_Content.aspx?id=74012

Prepared By : Tang Chee Seng

How E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support

E-commerce bring a lot of benefits to us, E-commerce has improved our living standard because it allowed us to conduct transaction easier than before.

In this section, i will discuss how E-commerce can helps to reduce the cycle time, improve employees' empowerment, and facilitate customer support.

I will divide the article into 3 parts:

1) How E-commerce help to reduce cycle time?

As what we have learned, E-commerce allows people to conduct the business without barriers of time and distance. Neither buyer or seller can log on to the Internet and conduct the transaction by just at a single click on the mouse. E-commerce helps us to save our time because we can purchase/track a certain product without travel to a physical outlets. Less time is spent in resolving invoice and order discrepancies if we are using e-commerce. Some of the software which is used to support E-commerce can help to improve document preparation process, order filling, delivery, and etc.

When we compare with traditional method and E-commerce method, the biggest difference between both method is the time of the operation. E-commerce operates 24 hours per day and it allow buyers to make an order other than during office hour. The order filling is continuously processing in 365 days.


2)Improve Employees' Empowerment

An E-commerce company such as dell, has developed a central database around the world and it allowed its employees to obtain the information from difference places. A well functioned software can enhance the performances of employees because it give more power to the employees to handle over their customers' information. Customer's details is accessible by employees and it allowed them to provide a better customer service.

Another example from Dell: Employees is assigned to serve the customer at one-on-one basis. This method allow employee to understand better over their customers needs/desire and try to satisfy their customers.


3)Facilitate Customer Support

The E-commerce applications such as CRM, consulting services, mobile CRM, discussion list, E-mail Newsletters, well designed web site can help to facilitate the customer support.

The CRM system can helps to increase customers' satisfaction. Well designed web page provide accurate/relevance information to customers and it helps to reduce their doubts and problems. The latest update can be obtained immediately compare to traditional method. Customer can log on to the forum to search for more opinions from others forumers before they make a decision. FAQ is provide within the website to helps to minimize the uncertainty and increase the feeling of secure.

There are many applications can enhance the customer support, these applications has improved our living standard and it bring the feel convenience.

In facts, E-commerce brings a lot of benefits to us rather than the 3 benefits which is discussed at above.

References :

-http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/E-commerce_-_Overview_-_Advantages
-http://www.ecommerceprogram.com/ecommerce/benefits-of-ecommerce.asp
-http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/ECommerce_-_Benefits
-http://www.bizfab.com/ecommercebenefits.html
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_commerce
-http://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/ecommerce-introduction/


Prepared by: Teo Muh Chow

An Example Of An E-Commerce Failure And Its Causes

Nowadays, E-Commerce has been bringing us some success in our life such as improving our lifestyle after it implemented. Although that, it still got other some failure of E-Commerce. The Pets.com is one of an example of E-Commerce companies which plummeted in the Dot.com crash. Pets.com attempted to sell pets accessories and supplies directly to the customer over the web.

Pets.com was started by Greg Mclemore in November 1998. It was then purchased in early 1999 by a venture capitalist firm.Amazon.com-backed Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO in February 2000 before collapsing nine months later.

Pets.com was never able to give pet owners a compelling reason to buy supplies online. After they ordered kitty litter, a customer had to wait a few days to actually get it. And let's face it, when you need kitty litter, you need kitty litter. Moreover, because the company had to undercharge for shipping costs to attract customers, it actually lost money on most of the items it sold.

The demand and needs of the consumers is important to identify as well as understand the market and the consumer's needs and wants. The Pets.com begins their e-commerce business without a survey in the market. The inability to define clearly the market demand and understand customer demand and buying behavior also cause the e-commerce failure.

Besides that, lack of experience in management and poorly constituted business plan led to the downfall of Pets.com. Company had raised more than $100 million in supporting only for the advertisement. The CEO and the managing body had little or no experience in running the company.

Furthermore, the idea of Pets.com was inadequate. The company was choosing a business that is not profitable. The customers just can view the picture of the pets but cannot touch the pets by themselves via the website. This makes the customers loss confident and reduces their trust on the quality of the pets and also the pets’ health condition. However if customers really want to order for the pets, they also have to wait for several days before the pets delivered to them. Purchasing online offered no real benefit whether it is regards to price or convenience.

Although Pets.com had shows the failure of e-commerce, but there are still have many success example of e-commerce. There are such as Amazon.com, Ebay.com and etc. Thus, many strategies are needed to develop before conduct the e-commerce business.

References :

- http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6278387-1.html?tag=feat.2
- http://www.witiger.com/ecommerce/dotcomfailures.htm
- http://www.itworld.com/nl/ecom_in_ent/11132001/pf_index.html
- http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/10826/34122/01625913.pdf?temp=x


Prepared By: Lee Boon Keat