Cyber criminals can strike anywhere, any time and in any form. This statement can be terrifying especially if you have not taken adequate steps to protect your ecommerce site. There are a few things that make any ecommerce website vulnerable:
- Public access to the same.
- People sharing credit card information on your website.
- The use of third party software for many of the operations and so on.
There are many ways in which you can protect your ecommerce site and here are the top 3 ways.
The platform
There are so many ecommerce platforms out there and the choice can be very confusing indeed. But you have to make this the starting point on your journey towards protecting your ecommerce website. Broadly speaking, the most successful websites are based either on WooCommerce or Magento.
Your choice should be based on:
- The security features available with each platform.
- The servers being compliant with PCI norms.
- The frequency of software patches and updates that the platform conducts.
- The speed of response of the team when and if there is problems.
Some platforms have secondary authentication while others may protect their control panel by placing it only on their internal network. Find out all the security features and guarantees offered by the web hosting platform and then decide on the best one possible.
Protect identity
Identity theft is not limited to individuals alone. Even ecommerce websites can fall prey to a hacker who is bent upon doing harm. In fact this is the most common way in which ecommerce fraud is carried out. Hackers can do two things:
- Take over your website itself.
- Steal the financial and personal identity of the shoppers who use your website.
Both of which have to be prevented. There are a large number of professional identity protection companies that can help set your website with top of the line SSL certifications. More importantly, they can set up alerts so that you can prevent suspicious activity from destroying your credibility.
SSL certificates help your customers trust you with their financial data. It helps to authenticate your business identity as well. One of the ways in which you can show this security-awareness is by having a URL green bar
PCI compliance
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is the norm for ecommerce safety. You have to ensure that your website is PCI compliant by:
- Encrypting data.
- Access control measures.
- Regular testing of security systems.
- Information security policy and protocols and many other facets.
Getting this compliance certificate is not easy but it is totally worth it when you want to protect your data and your valuable customers’ data. It is also a good idea not to store sensitive data. Some websites believe that it makes the shopping experience quicker when they store credit card numbers and expiration dates and even the CVV codes. It may be wiser not to store this amount of information on your website. But if you have used this feature then you have to have encryption and protection levels too.