| International Business : The Challenge of Global Competition, 8/e Donald Ball Wendell H. McCulloch,
California State University Long Beach Paul L. Frantz,
California State University Long Beach Michael Geringer,
California Polytechnic State University Michael S. Minor,
University of Texas Pan American
Competitive Forces
E Business CasesStudents: Included here are some internet/case assignments relating to E-Business that you can use to review or that your instructor may give as assignments. Your instructors have been given the answers to these questions and may choose to give them out to you or not. Cyber Crime: A Threat to International E-Business?
This case is designed to:
- Familiarize you with the current business climate related to cyber crime;
- Provide you with information about specific incidences of cyber crime; and
- Give you insight into how businesses are reacting in an effort to protect
themselves from cyber crime.
As the twentieth century ushered in a new millennium, the so-called Y2K bug took
the center stage as the main concern surrounding computer vulnerabilities. Past
programming practices that used six-digit dates (dd/mm/yy) as opposed to eight-digit
dates (dd/mm/yyyy) spawned the Y2K bug. The six-digit date format could wreck
havoc with programs that utilized date mathematics or for systems that used date
checks to test for date validity. Simply stated, is 01/01/00, January 1, 1900
or is it January 1, 2000? Businesses around the world spent huge sums of money
trying to eradicate the Y2K bug and then braced themselves for possible mayhem
as the clock struck twelve on December 31, 1999. There were isolated incidences
of computer glitches. However, for the most part, businesses moved into the new
millennium with few, if any problems.
February 2000, however, was not so tranquil, as cyber crime reared its ugly head.
As BusinessWeek put it:
The scenario that no one in the computer security field likes to talk about has
come to pass: The biggest e-commerce sites on the Net have been falling like dominoes.
First it was Yahoo! Inc. On Feb. 6, the portal giant was shut down for three hours.
Then retailer Buy.com was hit the next day, hours after going public. By that
evening, eBay, Amazon.com, and CNN had gone dark. And in the morning, the mayhem
continued with online broker E*Trade and others having traffic to their sites
virtually choked off.
What makes cyber crime so threatening to businesses is the ease with which it
can be perpetrated, its global nature and the difficulty in tracking down the
offenders.
Case Instructions:
Answer the following questions:
- The type of attack that crippled e-Commerce sites in February, 2000 is known
denial-of-service attack. What exactly is a denial-of-service attack? (Hint:
try surfing the net using "denial of service attack" as the search
string.)
- What can a company do to protect itself from a denial of service attack?
Go here to find out: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/denial_of_service.html#4
- Read the February 21, 2000 BusinessWeek article entitled "Cyber
Crime" located at http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_08/b3669001.htm
. Other than denial-of-service attacks, what are some of the other types of
cyber crimes that are being committed?
- According to the BusinessWeek article referenced in number 3 above,
what percentage of a corporation's property is in digital form?
- According to the BusinessWeek article referenced in number 3 above,
cyber attacks from what overseas countries are on the rise?
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