The Personal Information Security Problems of the Electronic Credit Card System

THE PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURITY PROBLEMS

OF THE ELECTRONIC CREDIT CARD SYSTEM

E-commerce is becoming increasingly prevalent with the wide use of the internet in business activities. Customers switch to pay the purchase by credit card through electronic accounts. However, adopting the new open and free trade platform is a risky procedure for the security of personal information. For instance, the Samsung Card had an accident of leaking over 80,000 of its clients' data in 2011 (Kang, 2011), causing a nationwide panic of information security in Korea. Regardless of other affecting elements, the credit card owners, as one of the largest entities involved in business transactions, are highly recommended taking positive actions protecting themselves from potential losses. This essay mainly illustrates the personal information security problems of the credit card on the electronic platform from the perspective of cardholders. It employs the logic of the problem solution model. The analysis begins with the causes of the personal data security problem, followed by several significant consequences. Solutions and recommendations are suggested at the end.

The majority of the credit card holders have little knowledge about the emerging credit card schemes and the electronic trading system. Their blindness results in the possible risks of personal information leaks. Firstly, since credit purchasing becomes a convenient and modern consumption mode, more people want to apply for credit cards. They disclose information to the companies without requiring any protection. Besides, customers may fail to recognize the credit card fraud in the virtual trading platform. Therefore, personal data are released to unknown entities (Kou, Lu and et al, 2004).

Additionally, most people are lack of protection consciousness to their electronic accounts. Password is a common and essential method to encrypt personal accounts (Notoatmodjo and Thomborson, 2009). However, for most cases in reality, passwords are more likely to be cracked. Clients tend to set simple passwords and procrastinate to update because it is difficult for those users to remember inconstant and complicated code (Granger, 2002).

Consequently, credit-card users always suffer from a mass of annoying promotion advertisements through emails, letters, even phone calls and messages. More seriously, the unsafe accounts may be misused by unknown business parties, which may result in unexpected property losses. These potential safety hazards even have a negative impact on the confidence of the electronic commerce.

In order to strengthen the security of personal information, cardholders had better improve the protection consciousness as well as obtaining more knowledge about the credit-card schemes and e-commerce process. On the one hand, it is a necessity for clients to require an official written document with credit-card companies to prevent data leaks. In addition, people ought to be careful during online purchasing. Customers should claim more detailed information from the merchant about the merchandises and services in order to assess the reliability of a transaction.

On the