The business with more inflow of income, attract criminals. The crime attacks are not limited to offline stores and doing bank robbery, instead, there is an increasing number of cyber crimes these days. E-commerce websites are the primary target of online crimes and the rate is increasing and is expected to keep rising with time. It is therefore essential for website owners and customers to keep their website secure.

The lack of knowledge of e-commerce security lead to huge losses like taking time over of an online store, disrupt its operation, retrieve customer confidential data, steal credit card information, transfer of payment to their account and lots more. The studies conducted revealed that the total cyber fraud contributed to $2.9 billion in losses during 2014. The total loss double by 2018 and the fraud-related losses reach up to $6.4 billion. All this alert businessmen and website owner who then look forward to implementing some preventive measures in order to keep online businesses safe and secured.

The website owners focus on every single threat, so they get overwhelmed quickly. But it is good for them to focus on general principles and to secure their website by following smart rules of website security.

E-commerce Security and Threat Protection Plan

Switch to HTTPS: Are you using an outdated HTTP? If yes, then your website might be more vulnerable to attacks. It is time to switch to HTTPS. Doing so displays a green lock sign next to the URL. It marks security on customer's computer. Also, the protocol not only protects the sensitive information of the users but also secure their data. Another benefit of upgrading to HTTPS is a higher ranking on Google's search page. Before switching, purchase an SSL certification from your hosting company. This will enhance your website standards and help you in getting considerable traffic.

Mind Password Policy: Using a secure password holds much importance and do require proper attention while choosing the appropriate one. The password setting has certain rules, and neglecting them can greatly help cybercriminals. Some of the top tips that one must follow while setting a password to view their website admin panel are:

  1. Never use similar passwords to log into different systems.
  2. Use strong and impersonalized passwords.

Watch out for Phishing Attacks: The cybercriminals do the malicious attack on e-commerce business by searching for profiles of employees, checking their position and see the ways that could help them to access the company's information. Hackers attack your business website either by targetting personal computers or work computers. Hackers can also go for a different way by targeting personal email of the web administrator with a phishing attack and are often successful in taking it over. But they can make mistake too while making an attempt. They falsify emails from real companies and fall into the trap. Here are a few recommendations that help e-commerce web administrator to follow:

  1. Don't use personal emails to log in to the admin panel.
  2. Don't make your work email available for public
  3. Don't bring your work email for personal use.
  4. Analyze the links and downloads before clicking on the links in an email. The malicious emails have destination URL unmatched with the expected destination website.
  5. Engage two-step verification for e-commerce admin panel.

 

Stay alert while communicating with the hosting provider: The e-commerce platform chooses hosting services and the e-shop contact to the technical support team of their hosting provider now and then. This rises the chances of a cybersecurity threat. Compromising with the security of the web hosting company can make your e-commerce website the potential target of the cybercriminals. Also, the encrypted credentials keep the admins under serious danger, as it gives direct access to the admin panel of a web store. Cybercriminals can mislead web administrator by speaking on behalf of tech support agents. Therefore, when looking for the hosting provider, web administrators should keep several rules in mind in order to protect their confidential data and web stores from hacking.

  1. Pay attention towards email and login password to the web hosting account. Using the same credentials for different work services leads to a company security breach in case of hacking.
  2. Do not leave any credential on request of tech support agents.
  3. Track company communication with tech support. The hosting provider set email notifications to track requests from team members to the tech support and control what information is shared.

Payment Gateway Security: Since an online payment using payment gateway become common these days the people store their credit card numbers on the database. This gives an open invitation for hackers who can affect your brand's reputation and customer's sensitive information on the line. In order to prevent your business from bankruptcy, never store your credit card information on your server and make sure that your payment gateway security is not at risk.

Use Firewalls: Firewall plugins and software are effective. It keeps untrusted networks at bay and regulates incoming and outgoing of traffic on your site. Also, it offers selective permeability thus allow trusted traffic to visit your site. It also offers protection against cyber threats such as SQL injections and cross-site scripting.

Employ Multilayer security: You can offer protection to your security by using different layers of security. Use two-factor authentication to squeeze in an additional layer of security. It includes standard username and password combination as well as extra code that is sent as an email to the user. Thus, it marks complete security and ensures that the user can access the service even if their username and password are at risk.

Backup Your Data: Data loss that occurs due to hardware malfunction or cyber-attacks usually occur and if you do not back up your data at the regular basis then you can be under the risk of losing it for good. You can ensure more protection by making a copy of backup or by choosing a managed e-commerce web hosting service that created backup automatically for you.

Concluding Lines

Staying alert and active while working on a website can help in protecting it from any kind of risk and threats in the future. Since a single mistake can lead to critical failure that can ruin your business and can even bankrupt your finances. It is good to make a proper investment in e-commerce security and to grab more tips and tricks concerning e-commerce security and while choosing web hosting partner for your website.