Investigating Security Options for StudentDevelop.com and the Testing of SSL

Abstract: Security issues have become a key problem with most e-commerce platforms these days and information sent over the internet needs to be protected. When operating an e-commerce platform such as studentdevelop.com financial transactions are involved. Data communication is very vital to e-commerce and needs to be processed securely. This thesis shall investigate Secure Socket Layer (SSL) as a possible solution to provide added security such as data integrity and confidentiality on the StudentDevelop.com web portal. This thesis shall also compare other known security suites available for use which could suit the StudentDevelop.com web platform. A vivid comparison shall be carried out to evaluate SSL and Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) with the aim of testing the preferred choice to provide encryption and data confidentiality on the StudentDevelop.com platform. Protocols like SSL make up the next layers of mechanisms that support applications with electronic payment schemes. Cryptography being an essential security technology involving the encryption algorithm and digital signatures can provide the basic building blocks. SSL shall be tested on the StudentDevelop.com platform by installing a self-signed certificate, including a test of a digital certificate obtained from a certificate authority. In SSL, the web browser is the client and the web-site server is the server. As a result to authenticate consumers on e-commerce platform such as studentdevelop.com, SSL increased the security for web transactions by using public-key encryption and digital certificate to achieve authentication. Encryption algorithm and digital signatures provided the basic building blocks, while SSL protocol made up the next layer of mechanisms that in return support the application layer. In the fourth coming sub chapters, we will look in to the problem description of this thesis and the investigation of security solutions for studentdevelop.com.