How do you secure something that is changing faster than you can fix it? The Internet has had security problems since it's earliest days as a pure research project. Today, after several years and orders of magnitude of growth, it still has security problems. The Internet is being used for a purpose for which it had never intended to be used for. It is somewhat ironic that the early Internet was design as a prototype for a high-availability command and control network that could resist outages resulting from an enemy attack, yet it cannot resist college undergraduates. The problem is that the attackers are on, and make up apart of, the network they are attacking. Designing a system that is capable of resisting attack from within, while still growing and evolving at a rapid pace, is probably impossible. Deep infrastructure changes are needed, and once you have achieved a certain amount of size, the sheer inertia of the installed base may make it impossible to apply fixes.
The challenge for the security industry is growing. With the electronic commerce spreading over the Internet, there are new issues being developed everyday such as non-repudiation that will need to be solved. Financial institutions will have both technical concerns, such as the security of a credit card number or banking information, and legal concerns for holding individuals responsible for their actions such as their purchases or sales over the Internet. Issuance and management of encryption keys for millions of users will pose a new type of challenge.
While some technologies have been developed, only an industry-wide effort and cooperation can minimize risks and ensure privacy for users, data confidentiality for the financial institutions, and non-repudiation for electronic commerce.
With the continuing growth in linking individuals and businesses over the Internet, some social issues are starting to surface. The society may take time in adapting to the new concept of transacting business over the Internet.
