| Abstract: | One of the most hindering factors for e-Commerce has been the fact that most of the services related to e-
Commerce have not been implemented with security in mind. If security is applied as an add-on or a patch
to existing e-Commerce solutions, it provides a degraded service because existing e-Commerce functional
requirements cannot easily be altered a posteriori. Even if this is not the case, e-Commerce users do not
usually trust such an e-Commerce service and frequently opt out of it, being afraid of possible risks they
might have to take while using the service. Security for e-Commerce must be thought of as a primary
functional requirement and must be designed and implemented a priori. Thus, security will not constitute a
hindering factor, but an enabler. This paper first considers security requirements for e-Commerce
applications, then discusses the workings of the Public Key Infrastructure, PKI, and, finally, highlights its
role in developing secure, hence trustworthy, e-Commerce applications. |
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Greek