Data Protection and Transaction Security

Transaction security pertains to three important components and related issues, namely:

● Transaction Privacy, which means that transactions must be held private and intact, with

unauthorized users unable to understand the message content;

● Transaction Confidentiality, implying that traces of transactions must be dislodged from the

public network and that absolutely no intermediary is permitted to hold copies of the transaction

unless authorized to do so; and

● Transaction Integrity, which pertains to the importance of protecting transactions from

unlawful interference-i.e., transactions must be kept unaltered and unmodified.

In an open network like the Internet, it seems difficult to ensure these. There are, however,

technological solutions that seek to address these security concerns. These solutions usually

come in the form of authorization schemes, i.e., programs that make sure that only authorized

users can gain access to information resources such as user accounts, files, and databases.

Typical examples of authorization schemes are: password protection, encrypted smart cards,

biometrics (e.g., fingerprinting, iris-scanning), and firewalls. A firewall is a system of

cryptographic methods supported by perimeter guards to ensure the safe arrival and storage

of information and its protection from internal and external threats. The most common data and

transaction and data security scheme is encryption, which involves a set of secret codes that

defends sensitive information crossing over online public channels. It makes information

indecipherable except to those with a decryption/decoding key.