With the holiday shopping frenzy the associated increase in buyer activity and spending will offer cyber criminals an opportunity too good to miss.
Let's not give them that opportunity.
While protecting your online store is important at all times of the year, now is the time to double down and make security one of your highest priorities. Plus it's good for sales.
To start, here are some of the major ecommerce security issues and threats that are lurking in the shadows, ready to exploit any existing vulnerabilities of your online store.
Ecommerce Security Threat #1: Phishing
The cybercriminal will pose as a trusted authority or even as your store to get your customers to open an email, instant message or text message with the goal of obtaining credit card details and other sensitive information.
Ecommerce Security Threat #2: DDoS
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are designed to flood your server with a large volume of fake requests and traffic. This can seriously slow down your online store or crash the server it is hosted on leading to major downtime.
Ecommerce Security Threat #3: XSS
In cross-site scripting (XSS), hackers target your website visitors by infecting your online store with malign code. In addition to stealing session cookies which allows them to pretend to be your online store visitors, hackers can use XSS to spread malware, phish for credentials, deface websites and perpetrate more damaging attacks.
Ecommerce Security Threat #4: Bad Bots
While good bots can help you rank your online store in SERPs (search engine result pages), bad bots can compromise the regular functions of your online store including your analytics. These tiny little scripts can wreak havoc on your sales and revenue by scraping your website for pricing and inventory information and then use that information to change the pricing of your online store or give an edge to your competitors.
Preventing Security Threats
To combat these threats, here are just a few solutions that retailers can implement to protect their customers and improve online store security.
Ecommerce Security Solution #1: Platform Security
Perhaps one of the most basic and important security tips is to choose a solid ecommerce platform and update your ecommerce software on a continuous basis. Secure your commerce data with built-in tools and best practices that make it easy to gain visibility, streamline operations, and keep every aspect of your store secure.
For example, Adobe Commerce (Magento) is PCI-certified as a level 1 Solution Provider. That means merchants using Adobe's solution can use PCI Attestation of Compliance to support their own PCI certification process. With Adobe, you can conduct your online business with confidence using tools like security scanning, which lets you keep tabs on your sites and get updates about security risks, malware, and unauthorized access. With their active global developer community, you can rest assured your security defenses are always up to date against current and emerging threats.
Ecommerce Security Solution #2: Implement HTTPS
Using outdated HTTP protocols makes your online store vulnerable to attack. If you haven't already, implement HTTPS on your ecommerce site by getting a verified and valid certificate from a competent Certificate Authority like SSLs.com or GlobalSign. In addition to protecting users' sensitive information, HTTPS protocols are a ranking factor for Google.
Ecommerce Security Solution #3: Maintain your PCI Compliance
Originally created by Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express in 2004, PCI (Payment Card Industry) is an industry standard for processing and transmitting credit card data. It has evolved over the years to ensure that online sellers have the systems and processes in place to prevent a data breach. Whenever an ecommerce store is PCI compliant, it means that the store is consistently adhering to a strict set of guidelines and security measures like not storing credit card data on a local server.
Ecommerce Security Solution #4: Block Bad Bots
This one will require a bit of vigilance as you will be monitoring your analytics for any kind of visitor anomalies that can hint at bad bot traffic hitting your servers. Because bots can read quicker than humans, you will see anomalies like the following: Higher bounce rates but the average page duration is decreasing or lower conversion rates from certain traffic sources. To block bad bots, you can invest in a security solution or apply it the DIY way. With the DIY method, you will want to observe which bots are not respecting your robots.txt instructions, log these bots and then use the htaccess file to block them.
Ecommerce Security Solution #5: SSL certificates
SSL certificates encrypt data to protect it from interception so that the information your customers send to your server is secure and doesn't fall into the hands of hackers. The certificate authenticates the identity of your online store, secures users' checkout data and protects them from financial fraud or information loss. Check with your hosting provider to see if they provide SSL certification as part of the hosting.
Regardless of which option you move forward with, security is the common denominator. We've touched on just a handful of the threats and solutions but like your holiday shopping, the list is long. If you want 100% peace of mind before the holiday season Guidance can help with a complete security audit.
