B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

292 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
takes place between different companies, there is some risk involved.
The major concerns are:
• Someone may intercept the message and breach its privacy;
• Someone may impersonate a company and send a message under its
name and signature;
• Someone may change the contents of the message in transit; and
• The sending company may, later on, deny having sent the message.
To reduce these risks, the following security services must be ensured
during B2B communication:
• Confidentiality — assurance that the message is private and its contents
have not been disclosed to the outside world;
• Authentication — proof that the message was indeed sent by the
company with whom communication was taking place;
• Integrity — complete assurance that the message was not tampered
with or accidentally altered during transit; and
• Non-repudiation — the message must be binding on the sending
company so that it cannot deny having sent it at a later point.
Failure in ensuring any of the above features will result in the whole
transaction being compromised and ultimately undermine the confidence
of businesses and consumers in B2Bi technology.
10.5.1. The strength of the chain is as strong as its
weakest link
Besides securing the data transaction, i.e., the data while it passes from
one enterprise to the other, the data must be secure at the end-points as
well. To elaborate further, the data resides in the sending company on
some physical system, maybe its Web server, or some other server.
Also, when the receiving company gets the data, it stores it in some
physical location. Unless strict measures are taken, this data can fall
into unauthorized hands, by someone breaking into the internal LAN of
either company, through the Web server or through the operating system.
Therefore, each aspect of the system must be equally secured. There is