E-Government in Malaysia

Implementation

The Electronic Government initiative in Malaysia was launched to lead the country in to Information Age. Malaysia has so far implemented systems such as Electronic Services System(E-services), Human Resource Management Information System(HRIMS), E-Syariah and most importantly, myGovernment Portal, which serve as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for citizens. They are also other systems implemented for the advancement of information distribution. Wish to try out our very own My-Gov portal?? Click the pic on your right.

Citizen's Adoption

An example is the Electronic Labor Exchange(ELX) which is a one stop-centre for labor market information, as supervised by the Ministry of Human Resource(MOHR) that enables employers and potential employees to communicate on the same platform. The objective of this platform is to create an effective and integrated job matching process and to ensure man power's utilization is optimized. Many Malaysians has started to use such platforms situated in public places and exhibition halls when these systems are introduced.

As for the competency of E-Gov system in Malaysia, My-Gov portal has won Global ICT Awards at the World Congress on Information Technology(WCIT) 2008, which is held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre(KLCC). The picture below depicts the moment of glory and you can click on the pic for further information:

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its Potentials and Consumers' Adoption Strategies

Potentials

Mobile payment system is increasingly being adopted by Malaysian, young and old, nowadays. With mobile operators building a secure credit/debit/virtual card that can be used seamlessly to pay online and offline merchants, it definitely benefits our busy daily routine. Click the picture below for more info on mobile payment in Malaysia:One of the potential is the safety of the consumers because mobile phone is used to transmit payment information without the need to carry a credit card, don’t mention the cash. Secondly, such mobile service works on any mobile and it eliminates the hassle to queue up just to pay your electric bills. If you are worrying for the payment security, you can be rest assure that strong pin fraud protection patent will offer great security and inability to hack passwords.

CoNsuMers’ AdoPtioN sTraeGy

Different classes of people use mobile payment system for different purpose. The most common in Malaysia is using mobile payment to pay summons. Moreover, some use to donate to charities from their mobile devices. While busy working adults also can use their mobile devices to pay credit card debts, electric bills and phone bills. This is because all they have to activate their telephones by logging into websites. After registering their mobile telephone numbers, they can enjoy the services.

I believe with the advancement of technology and development of mobile payment software, soon, purchasing items through mobile devices will be made possible in Malaysia. Another linkto mobile payment in Malaysia,click the picture on the right-->

Phishing: Examples and its Prevention Method

We are always heard the word "PHISHING" , but what actually PHISHING means?

~It is a fraudulent attempt (usually made through email) to steal someone personal details.~

Before we discuss further, lets see how the steps the attackers does while executing a phishing attack

1. Register a fake domain name [not mandatory]
2. Setup a look alike webpage
3. Send email to hundreds of users

Lets see the EXAMPLES......

CITIBANK PHISHING SCAM



Upon clicking the link, the user is directed to the following authentic-looking page:

Another EXAMPLE:

WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK PHISHING EMAIL

~This phish claims that Washington Mutual Bank is adopting a new security measures which require confirming ATM card details. The victim is directed to a phishing site and any information entered is sent to the attacker.

HOW TO PREVENT IT?

1) Learn to recognise a "phish"

! Never click directly on any link from your email.

! Phishing emails are usually sent in bulk. to save time, they use generic name such as " Dear Valued Customer. Therefore, be suspicious if you don't see your first or last name.

! Roll the mouse over the link and see if it mathches what appear in the email.

! Websites where it is safe to enter personal information begin with "https"- the "s" stands for secure.As such, if you don't see "https", DO NOT PROCEED.

! Business should not ask you to send passwords, login names, or other personal information through email so do not respond to any email asking for your personal details.

! Poor resolution- Phishing websites are often poor in quality because they are crated with urgency. If the resolution on a logo or in text strikes you as poor, be suspicious.

! Read the URLs from right to left. The real domain name is at the end of the URL.

! Look out for URLs that begin with an IP address.

For example,

ttp://12.12.34.34/firstgenericbank/account-update/- this is likely a phish.

2) Getting Anti virus and spyware protection that is current and up-to-date
Examples of anti phishing freeware

~ GFI-MailEssentials
~ Earthlink Toolbar Scamblocker
~ Webroot's Phish net


3) Use Internet Explore 7

~ Internet Explore 7 includes the Microsoft Phishing Filter, which helps protect you from Phish websie by warming or blocking you from reported phishing web Sites

If a web site is a known phishing site, the Address Bar will turns red, and the Security Bar will appear.


4) Verify the URL Example~ Phish Tank provide service that you can use to verify suspicious URL before you proceed with the transaction.






Useful references:

http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailscams/ss/phishing_2.htm

http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/phishinglog.php

http://kb.cadzow.com.au:15384/cadzow/details.aspx?ID=1422

http://www.phishtank.com/what_is_phishing.php?view=website&annotated=true

http://www.ecommerze.blogspot.com/

http://www.anti-phishing.info/anti-phishing-freeware.htm

how to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Scare of saving important data in your computer?Lets learn some important ways to safeguard your personal or financial information.

1. Set up a private wireless connection. If your are using a wireless connection to access to the internet, set up a secure account in order to prevent other users can log on to your account or access saved passwords or your personal information.

2. Do not save email settings or password settings. Some online banking sites, social-media web sites and shopping sites will provide the option to you to save your users id and passwords so that the users do not need to log-in everytime. If you save this information it will be eassy to let hackers to access your information and change the information or steal your confidential information.

3. Use different passwords. This is because if you using the same password for every online account you have, you are putting yourself in an unsecured position.Hackers can easily crack the password through the unsecured web sites.

4. Log out your account after you finished using the sites. Example, after you have checked your email, or your bank account especially when you are using a public computer.

5. Install anti-virus protection. This is the most common way that usually people use to prevent their personal data being hack. This is one of the web site that you can download the anti-virus software for free. If u have any suggestion, you are welcome to leave some comment.. :D

6. Avoid saving credit card information or your shopping profile online. Nowadays, many web sites such as Amazon, eBay will give you the option to save your credit card information so that you don't have to retype all the information again while you are doing some transactions.

7. Always think before providing information when solicited. Example if your received an email which ask you to valify your personal information and it provides a link, you need to be alert this may be some phishing web sites.

8. Make sure the URL has an HTTPS instead of HTTP. The "S" was made all the difference! When they is a HTTPS sites, it mean that the communication between your computer and their server is secure and encrypted. Therefore, it is very hard for someone to try to read the data as it travels across the Internet, because they do not understand or able to decirypt it.

9. Be careful with the person fixing your computer. If you are not a tech person, you will need to hand over your computer to someone else when something goes wrong. Please pass it to some people that you can trust with to prevent people to download all your personal information or back up all the important data into your hard drive or flash drive before u send to repair.

10. Lastly, if you really feel that you need extra safety to safeguard your data you can apply some advanced techniques like encryption, anonymous browsing, virtualization software, anti-virus saftware and etc.

The Threats of Online Security:How safe is your data?

Welcome!!! To the world of data LOSS.

Imagine switching off your computer at night but waking up to find an error message popped up on your computer screen, followed by innumerable important files become corrupted (especially those files where one documenting their emails containing usernames and passwords). How secure is the data in our computer, merely just by allowing it to access the Internet?

Online banking has, with the use of Internet continues to expand and for the sake of convenience, more banks and thrifts are using the Web to conduct banking business and services. Like other growing countries, Malaysians, no doubt have taken into online banking system. However, how safe is our money from fraudsters, who are luring people to reveal their personal details using increasingly advanced scams and software? Each year, online banking customers are being defrauded of more than $25million. It often happened when victims, who have fallen to phishing scams, revealed that hoax emails are sent to their inboxes, convincing them as though they are from the organizations such as bank. These emails are designed to trick the unsuspecting consumers who then idly handed over their banking account numbers, passwords and PINS. Furthermore, sadly, customers are personally liable if they disclose their password or unreasonably delay reporting the fraud. In addition to the numbers of viruses unleashed each day to engulf public and organization who are relying on Internet, valuable and confidential data cannot be underestimated.

Nevertheless, online bankers don’t need to frown because as consumers rapidly took up Internet connection for their computers, banks have also upgraded their system and continuously implementing better security system that is able to look for fraud in real time and investigating technologies such as factor authentication. Two factors authentication is achieved when a keychain sized generator is attached and synched with the bank systems and this generator will generate ever changing code. The code is then purposed to be entered into the customer’s online banking login, combining with the existing passwords and this code is send to customers via SMS of mobile phone. In practice, only a small percentage of banks are using the two factor authentication due to inconvenience to customers and added costs to banks.

The law regulator and policies makers have also contribute their part to ensure online banking is safe for consumers. Most financial institutions are required by the law to abide in using 128-Bit SSL encryption. When one is doing online banking or purchasing over the web, one must ensure your information is being transferred securely. This can be done by checking whether the domain in front of the web address is displayed as https:// (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTP over SSL). When the user is in such web page, it is hard for another party to steal valuable information from the webpage. In addition, one’s browser should also display a little lock image at the lower right hand corner of the page.

Being the consumer, one will also need to take precaution on their side. Consumers need to be alert that banks or financial institutions will not, via emails to enquire customers to enter security or financial details but through phone calls or letters. Most banks are targeted by such counterfeit website and cause millions of losses to both banks and public. Hence, if in doubt, a consumer should not hesitate to contact the subjected banks for confirmation. Online bankers also need to take heed and be responsible on the security of their personal computers and not being accessed by unauthorized users. Prevent from using public shared computers to carry out bank transactions, installing up-to-date anti-virus software and firewall and keeping pins and passwords information in safe place will also reduce the risk of data being exposed to hackers and theft. There are also news on hackers who successfully hacked into militiary system,if you wish to know more please access to this website:

http://www.iwr.co.uk/news/hacking

Online Shopping… Is it Safe??

Cyber-shopping has also become increasingly popular in the local market. Although surfing Web and making for bargain in the comfort of your own home seem perfect, but one have to be cautious not to be exposed to threats to data and personal information theft.

This is especially the matter so when it comes to credit card payment for products offered for sale via the website. Although making credit card payments are no different from ordering on the phone, one still have to take safety measure to avoid identity theft and credit card fraud. Hence, online shoppers are advised to use a secure Web browser that encrypts confidential information. Moreover, one have to be conscious not to provide personal checking or savings account information to any online stores and avoid so-called “direct-withdrawals” from your accounts.

In contrast, online shoppers can be rest-assured to some extent on the issue of making credit card payments. For the reason being research has proved that online credit card transactions are as safe as face-to-face transactions. It is proven difficult to detect the exact number of sales and estimate credit card numbers because of its length. Credit card purchases are also well protected by special federal laws then merchandising with cash or check. Although cyber-shopping sounds scary but it actually gives the shopper a benefit which is the ability to check their account information from the comfort of one’s own home and identifying possibly fraudulent activities at anytime.

Though using online services seems exposing us to vulnerable threats to the security of our data, there are still enough sophisticated software and safety measures that can be taken by online users to prevent data loss. For further tips on how to practice safe online shopping, you can visit the website below:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/alpha-consumer/2007/10/09/staying-safe-while-shopping-online.html

E-commerce can Reduce Cycle Time, Improve Employees’ Empowerment and Facilitate Customer Support

*Reduce Cycle time*
Cycle Time is the amount of time between a customer placing and order and receiving the goods. With e-commerce, substantial of the process can be eliminated. For instance, a customer does not need to queue to make order. Thus improve customer service and also reduce cycle time. Besides that, ecommerce can reduce cycle time by eliminating intermediaries between sellers and buyers which is also known as disintermediation. This is not only reducing cost but it also reduce the time where the customer have to go through intermediate person in order to enjoy the goods and services of the company. In addition, disintermediation leads to faster provision of products and services to the marketplace through streamlined and thus cheaper production. In addition, with the advances of technology nowadays, the speed of producing transaction online keep on increasing thus further reduce the cycle time.

A very successful company that uses e-commerce to reduce substantial cycle time is Dell Company. Dell revenue primarily gains from selling its products online. The whole buying process can be done online therefore customer no longer required to enter duplicate information in order to purchase. The electronic requisition can approved electronically and automatically become an electronic purchase order. This order will flows directly into Dell’s manufacturing system where the order are processed immediately. Thus, helping the customer to save time and also increase the company efficiency.

Dell Online Purchase Order

*Improve Employees' Empowerment*
Besides that, e-commerce can also lead to employee empowerment. By using e-commerce, employee training can be conducted online. The manager can provide CD-ROM to their employee and ask them to learn the necessary skills online. To further increase the efficiency of using this method to train the employees, the manager can even conduct a test to access their employees. Furthermore, many companies have developed its own company intranet where manager can easily communicate with their employees and vice versa. This is very hard in the conventional way of communication where every time the subordinate wants to communicate with their superior, they need to make formal appointment and that process takes time. With company intranet, the employees can get the most updated company announcement and manager’s instructions. They can even present their results to the manager online.

Coastal's Clarity CD-Rom training

*Facilitate Customer Support*
Moreover, good customer support plays an essential role in every business. Business studies have shown that happy customers will lure 4 other people to the business. On the other hand, unhappy customer will tell 10 people how unsatisfied they are with the company. Human behaviors are very hard to change, therefore, in order to attract more customers and retain current customers; a company must provide excellent customer support system. E-commerce certainly can facilitate customer support better than the traditional business trading. The common tool in a company website is FAQ. With this, the customers do not even have to ask a question but they can get the answer from FAQ. If it happens that the question in which the customer want to ask and it is not available in the FAQ, the question will directed to auto responders. Auto responders can perform 24hours per day without having to take a rest. Therefore, it can response to customer query and complaints anytime. For example, when a customer post a question to the auto responder, the auto responder can automatically send the customer the appropriate information in response to the standard question. If a customer replies to an auto responder they can receive an automated email with a link to the FAQ section to read those problem usually encounter by others.

For full picture please visit http://www.pizzahut.com/FAQ.aspx

Besides that, some company such as Nike and Jaguar provide a special function for their customer to design their own shoe and cars to increase their customer satisfaction. By allowing customers to track delivery of parcels in real time, the Federal Express website keeps customers in touch with the location of their goods and when they will arrive. In addition, a company website also provide shopping cart where it allows customers to track back the products that they selected and produce the order once. All these function has considerably increased customer satisfaction.

Please click the link below and have a look at this demo:

Fedex Insight Demo

Wanna experience customizing your own shoe or car?

Please click on the link below:

Nike

Jaguar

As such, more and more companies are engaging their business through e-commerce where it can greatly reduce the cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitates customer support.

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its Causes

The Internet and the growth of e-commerce have had a revolutionary effect upon business whether it is dealing with other business or whether it is business selling to consumers. Business man have view that the Internet as the perfect medium for start-up venture’s investment to make a quick capital gain. There are many successful examples in E-commerce such as Amazon.com, Google.com, E-bay.com and etc. However, they are no guarantee that all companies will success in e-commerce, it may because of they are not able to face the challenges in market by the use of Internet.

EToys.com is one of the top 10 dot-com flops. EToys.com was launched in 1997, it was founded by the CEO, who name Toby Lenk, COO Frank Han and Idealab Founder Bill Gross. EToys seem like the best idea for those busy parents; it offered them a chance to order thousands of toys in every catergory from the comfort of their homes. Beside that the site also had fun features, the features including gift recommendations by age and and information about popular characters, from Madeline to Barney. Etoys also has won a praise for its site design and had technically sophisicated warehouses and fulfillment operation. In 1999 during the Christmas, EToys was suffered a black eye because it failed to deliver some order in time. The first impression for new customers was ruin because of this, and people were worry of using the site again. In August 2000, the Toys"R"Us and Amazon.com has formed a partnership, it put Etoys into risk. EToys went into liquidation in March 2001, Because run out of money and other funding options exhausted.

One of the causes of the EToys.com failure in e-commerce is because of ineffective customer service or misinformation about products and services, example like the failed to deliver the order on time would destroy the image of the company, and the first impression of new customers. Customer will not feel confidence and afraid to use the site again. However, the negative response from customers is also another cause which will lead the dot-com filed into bankruptcy in E-business. This is why the reputation of a company is very important, once it is ruined; peoples will loose the confidence in such company again. For example, if the E-business fails to deliver on time, the customer will not return and they will share with their friends about their bad experience. Third, maybe effect of the errors in the company's Web site. Sometimes hundreds of errors could be found in one Web page, this is due to peoples will be frustrated to visit or log in to the company’s Web site. Beside that, inability to define clearly and to understand the market demand, the needs of the customer, or their buying habits of the marketing strategy, if it is not immensely enough or is ineffective, is another reason for failure.

Because of the causes stated above, many dot-coms have fall into liquidation. Therefore, in order to avoid the failure of an e-commerce company, useful of business strategies, and effective, strong organisational, and customer relation policies to meet the demands of its valuable customers are the key elements of the successfulness in e-commerce.