Introduction

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The design and architecture of an e-commerce site can take on many different appearances, depending on the company's objective and the type of commerce being conducted at the site. Unfortunately, many architectural decisions are not necessarily based on security considerations, causing potential holes in the overall network environment. E-commerce sites contain multiple levels of potential security risk affecting all their common building blocks: Web servers, commerce servers, database servers, routers, firewalls, network connectivity and the use of DMZs (demilitarized zones). Identifying and protecting sensitive data at all these levels can be accomplished by using various security features and building layers of complexity, commensurate with the value of the commerce being conducted.

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