ABSTRACT
Businesses are accustomed to dealing with risks, but this is not to say that they welcome having to face new ones. Information technology (IT), having blazed a trail through most areas of business activity, has turned out to be surprisingly fragile. It has introduced new uncertainties into the world of business, since it seems to be vulnerable to errors, accidents, fraud, and various kinds of malicious attack. It is hardly surprising, therefore, if business organisations have mixed feelings about their dependence on information systems (IS). The arrival of electronic trading, in particular, has caused many to wonder about whether the new technology is completely trustworthy.
