Ecommerce is facing threats from all directions on the internet. Any business looking forward to ensuring the safety of their data and customer digital footprints should beware of some methods to enhance cybersecurity.
They have to put in extra effort in making their information stores, sites, and data more secure. This is the most important thing that e-commerce sites that handle customer transaction information should be doing.
Once an e-commerce store goes live, creating a secure shopping experience is not a one-off. Ensuring that your website is on and running involves regular inspection of any security loopholes and maintenance.
Addressing the critical security issues is one of the simplest ways to mitigate cybersecurity risk, protect customer data, and reduce potential losses that result from cybercrime.
In enhancing protection from cyber attacks and keeping customer data safe, here is what any ecommerce company should aim to do.
Photo by Jefferson Santos on Unsplash
1 – Monitor your passwords
One simple way of hackers getting into your accounts and stealing crucial data is when they gauze your passwords and log in easily.
In a survey by Harris Interactive, it has been established that at least 59% of brands admit to using a single password because it is not easy to remember all of them. Additionally, 54% of Americans admit that they have poor password habits and should change.
You should avoid using the same password across all the internal systems, especially on administrative accounts and public-facing logins. Make it a habit to generate a unique password for each system and regularly set up a schedule for updating your passwords.
You should use a password manager to generate passwords from an encrypted vault. Your website will only be accessed locally and by visitors having a master password. This will ensure that a unique password is generated for every site, every visitor to your e-commerce.
2 – Encrypt your website
Using SSL encryption for the checkout process is still the oldest approach to securing your site. A lot of changes are being made to enhance cyber security on sites. For example, a recent update by Google Chrome seeks to make the browser more secure and easy to use.
When browsing with Chrome, users will be warned when visiting sites that attempt to gather customer data with forms if the pages are not well encrypted. Shopify and other e-commerce platforms are already using SSL site-wide across all their sites and pages to make online shopping safe and secure.
3- Hire Cyber Security Specialists
Cyber Security specialists are professionals who implement security audits across different computer systems and servers used by the organization.
Nowadays, companies are hiring cyber security experts with a certificate in cybersecurity to keep watch of their information systems and databases.
Since ecommerce companies have to deal with a large amount of sensitive customer data, hiring computer security specialists minimizes the threat of network infrastructure and ensures safety of user data.
4 – Enforce a two-factor authentication
The use of two-factor authentication is now being recommended by most of the SaaS platforms for e-commerce as a way of improving security.
When your website uses two-factor authentication, a user will be required to verify their identity by providing additional information and login confirmation through different channels like phone, SMS, and email.
You can set two-factor authentication for your website or ecommerce platform like Shopify on all your social media accounts and any other business application you may be using.
5 – Leverage all existing security options
In most cases, some applications will always come with security features. You must implement such features on your website. However, it is important that you implement other additional safeguards. You should find out the additional security features included in the software and use these to the fullest in collaboration with the security you have in place.
To boost productivity in your business, you should allow employees to work everywhere. There are different technologies that you can use to implement remote work. However, before implementing them, you want to ensure these technologies are all safe.
6 – Store only customer information that you need
Not all information you collect from your customers should remain in your database. It is important that you only have useful information for your business. Never hold more data than you need to conduct your business optimally.
There is a growing data privacy regulation, which makes it important that you only establish a business philosophy that can balance customer experience, security, and convenience.
You can segment your network to keep the critical data that customers provide. To ensure that all your security measures are functioning well, you should deploy firewalls and conduct proper site audits. Always ensure that all the security measures are in place and working optimally.
7 – Switch your site to HTTPS
Another way to keep your website safe from cyber-attacks is through secure HTTPS hosting. This will help to improve your website security. You should also beware that Google and other search engines usually prefer HTTPSwebsites in organic search rankings.
If you have an HTTPS website, it is a plus to your marketing team because your site is regarded as safe for users. Having HTTPS sites sends positive trust signals to site visitors and online shoppers.
8 – Review plugins and third-party integrations
The first step is to inventory all the third-party solutions you have on your website.
You want to ensure you know what the plugins are used for, where they are on the site, and whether you continue to trust them on your site.
Remove any plugin integrations on your store that you are not using and those that are vulnerable. This will help you allow only a few parties that have access to customer data as you seek to grow your business.
Final Thoughts
You should do a lot if you want to ensure your business remains safe and secure from cybercrime.
To avoid any cyber risk or attack, you must have a security update plan for your e-commerce store. Set a plan for website update to ensure the security of your business and customers is always guaranteed.
Always ensure you and your customer care team are always ready for common threats. Set a clear process of verifying the identity of customer requests and changes to their accounts and orders. With these cyber security measures, you can always guarantee your customer’s safety when visiting your online store regularly.
