Secure Your E-Commerce Site From Hacking Attempts

E-commerce business continues to skyrocket and when there is money to be made, criminals are here to follow.

Online stores are the prime targets for cyber crimes. This is not new as the e-commerce websites are more lucrative for the cyber criminals. This is because e-commerce website process the customer’s money which is itself lucrative for the cyber criminals and secondly the transactions contain sensitive data of the customers that are directly associated with their credit cards, allowing various scams and frauds easier to make.

Your e-commerce website is not just a website you are running there, in fact, you are also responsible for your customer’s financial and personal security. There is a saying for this:

“Running a website brings responsibility whereas running an e-store brings even greater responsibility”

So how exactly can you secure you e-commerce store against hacking attempts and cyber crimes? Following are some tips and hacks to enhance your e-commerce store security.

Select a Secure Ecommerce Platform: Choose the e-commerce platform which uses a sophisticated OOP language (Object Oriented language)

Set up a Secure Connection for Checkout: Use strong SSL (Security Socket Layer) to protect the website and the data. SSL certificates give authentication that your e-business is safe and the data is encrypted in transit. This will secure your e-store and your customers from losing their important and financial information.

No More Sensitive Storage Data: There is no need to store extra records of your customers especially credit card numbers, expiration dates and card verification value codes (CVVC).

Instead, keep a minimal amount of data to chargebacks and refund.

Enable Address & Card Verification System: Employ AVS (Address Verification System) and CVVC (Card Verification Value Code) for credit card transactions to reduce fraud rates.

Put Strong Passwords: It’s not the only responsibility of online retailers to secure their customer’s information on the back-end, but also to require a strong password from the customers.

A password which has minimum characters along with symbols and numbers are harder for cybercriminals to breach into the e-commerce site from front-end.

Put up System Alert for Suspicious Activity: Set up system alert notice for multiple transactions done through same IP address. Similarly, online retailers can put up these alerts for multiple orders placed by the same person using different credit cards and phone numbers which are from different areas than billing addresses and orders where the receipt name is different from the card holder name.

Layer you E-commerce Security: Layering your security is one of the best ways to keep your e-business secure from cyber-attacks. Put up firewalls, an essential part in stopping cyber criminals before they can breach and get access to your critical and sensitive information.

You can add some more extra layers of security to your e-commerce site and the applications such as contact forms, login boxes and search query. These steps will ensure that your e-commerce site is protected from application-level attacks like SQL injections and XSS (Cross-site Scripting)

Security Training for Employees: Provide security training to employees and make them understand that they should never reveal private customer information on email or in chats as none of these methods are secure.

Make use of strict written protocols and policies and encourage employees to implement them.

Use Tracking Number for Orders: To fight back against chargeback fraud, keep a record of every tracking numbers for the orders you send out. It is very important for those online retailers who do drop ship.

Monitor your Ecommerce Site: Use analytics tool. It is equivalent of installing security cameras in your shop. Tools like Woopra or Clicky will let you keep an eye as for how the customers are navigating and interacting with your e-commerce store.

With the help of these tools, you can detect fraud and any suspicious behavior. One more thing to make sure is to check whoever is hosting your e-commerce site, monitors their servers from malware, viruses and other harmful activity.

Do Regular PCI Scans: Perform regular PCI scans through Trustwave to lessen the risks of hacking attempts against your e-commerce store. If your e-commerce store is using a third-party downloaded software like Magento or PrestaShop, then stay updated with the latest versions of them with improved security measurements.

Security is an ongoing process. The success of an online store is that your customers should feel confident in the dedication to online security. Do remember, your e-commerce site is really important to your business, protect it and secure your customer’s data. Follow our above guideline to find out if your e-commerce store is vulnerable and requires security.