Web engineering

Q. 7: Write short note on Web security issues.

Ans As the Web becomes more popular and e-commerce transaction amount to billions of dollars, security has become a key issue on the Internet Whether it be financial transactions or subscription-based limited accessibility to Web pages, the ability for people to send coded messages is essential for the Web to be a medium for serious business.
Throughout history, most private messages were kept secret with single key cryptography. In single key cryptography, there is a unique code (or key ) for both coding and decoding messages. This technique works fine when the key itself can be reliably and confidentially communicated between the counter parties, while the coded message can be transmitted later on. In the case of the Internet, however., the key has to be communicated in the same way as the message itself and this creates a problem. If the key falls in wrong hands, not only is the secrecy of the particular message compromised, but also whoever gets the key may even impersonate the sender and send misleading message, besides large organizations would need to have thousands of secret keys for
maintaining the proper security of a large number of messages.