As companies start embracing e-business and link their networks into electronic communities to engage in business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce, they may find themselves at risk. But this doesn`t have to be so, says Mike Hamilton, director of lines of business at Logical, a worldwide integrator of e-business solutions and services. He believes that, by approaching security correctly, companies can enhance their potential in the e-business arena rather than inhibiting it.
Hamilton explains that, two years ago, the perception of security was that of firewalling, which focused on keeping people out of a company`s internal networks. However, today, with e-business becoming all pervasive, business is all about letting people in.
"This means we`re at odds with the market perception," Hamilton says. "Security used to be a grudge purchase, but now it is an enabler, as long as companies have the correct strategy that goes beyond the perimeter."
If a company extends security into its system and application access and makes it a collaborative process, an appropriate security strategy will undoubtedly enhance the ability of an organisation to participate in e-business.
"In other words," says Hamilton, "security is an enhancer of potential rather than a grudge inhibitor."
E-business is all about allowing a company`s processes to span multiple organisations ie collaboration of multiple independent parties, so it is important to plan correctly. Users simply cannot take for granted that when they connect into an organisation, they are connecting to a fully secured collaborative environment.
However, states Hamilton, as standards like XML are being embraced, there`s the promise that it will be easier to integrate diverse applications and therefore simplify the establishment of e-business. "But the spin-off of this is that there will be a much stronger focus on the need for security."
He emphasises that companies have to think about security as being an integrated component of everything they do and that the security strategy has to be bought into from the highest level within that company.
"When embracing e-business, a solid foundation is crucial and it must have the ability to work in a time-independent and distance-independent way. For this to be true, one needs guaranteed availability but any hole in the security would cause that to break down.
"If a customer can`t get to you, your competitor is only a click away."
As has been demonstrated by the recent spate of hacker attacks into corporate networks, Hamilton says a fully secure environment is not yet a reality but he stresses that companies need to realise that there is always a fine balance between risk and collaboration.
"Companies need to look at the risk of letting people in to their networks versus the desired functionality - e-business is a risk versus reward balance," he concludes.
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