International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 37, December, 2011 47 Security Challenges For Expanding E-governments’ Services Izzat Alsmadi Yarmouk University ialsmadi@yu.edu.jo Abstract In the scope and vision of using and expanding the types of services e-government portals can offer to citizens, one of the major challenges and possible barriers is the security concern. Unlike typical websites that include largely data to browse and download, such portals are expected to have sensitive private personal data about country citizens. The threat of possible intrusion or identity theft is high and may cause serious consequences. This paper proposes a multilevel security layered architecture for e-government websites based on the data access privileges. The paper evaluates the current security status of selected e-government portals in Jordanian e-government suite of websites. The focus of the evaluation is on possible vulnerabilities in securities and possible candidate threats. The study focuses on showing the weaknesses and problems that face the expansions of e- government services in Jordan to be fully active in the e-business to provide services to citizens throughout the Internet. The study makes some recommendations on how to approach such problems. Keywords: E-government, e-business, security, vulnerability, and e-commerce 1. Introduction Many countries around the world are continuously trying to expand their utilization of the Internet services. They are trying to facilitate using the Internet as an alternative for selling, buying, and communicating with individuals or business in person. Providing such services without the need for the physical present of individuals can make such services and transactions much more convenient to citizens. In countries that have long time utilization of the Internet services such as USA, perhaps e- government initiatives may not be that much compelling due to several factors. The first one is that a large number of companies provide services through the Internet and such services are used frequently by individuals. For examples, people buy books online in the US more than buying them from actual stores. In fact, even traditionally known book sellers’ outlets are expanding their business to cover selling, or buying online. The second reason is that the required infrastructure for e-business transactions is well established, tested, and evaluated. As we will explain later on, such requirements can be divided in several aspects that include, legal, technical, and cultural aspects. Another factor is that people in the US with a wide spectrum based on their age, location, level of education, etc use, respect and trust using online business transactions. If we take one aspect which is: e-banking, it can be considered as a sub category of e- businesses. It focuses in providing all bank services for users online. This may include: checking balance, authorize funds to third parties, check account history, pay for items that they bought online, or transfer money from bank account to another.