Are you doing everything possible to protect the security of your online store? You need to think carefully about this issue, because these days hacking and theft of information from online stores have become ubiquitous.
Hacking an online store can be a serious business problem. Many e-commerce sites will no longer be able to work after being hacked. So, if your e-commerce store is not immune to hacking and fraud, then your business is at risk of paying a high price for data breaches and cyber-attacks. Not to mention, you’ll lose the trust and loyalty of your customers and this can tarnish your reputation.
One of the ways to protect your e-commerce or online store from cyber-criminals is by seeking the help of professional IT support Melbourne services. Managed IT support companies provide round-the-clock system monitoring to reduce the risk of cyber vulnerabilities. Experienced IT specialists can also provide in-depth training to your employees, helping them safeguard your e-commerce business data. But it’s also important to do your part in protecting your e-commerce store from hackers.
Let’s consider some basic but mandatory methods and ways to protect the site of an online store.
#1 Hire A Response Team Who Provide Managed IT Services
Getting services from a response team can help you stay ready to avoid any security issues by planning and responding to incidents such as cyber-attacks and data breaches. If you hire an incident response team, you’ll be getting access to a response plan that offers the following benefits;
- Testing and resolving all the vulnerabilities in your e-commerce system
- An organized approach allows your store to use the workforce, resources, and tools to solve any upcoming issue and reduce its aftermath on different operations.
- It strengthens overall security as the current measures are analyzed to find all the potential weaknesses, thus reducing the overall response time and cost.
#2 Use a Reliable Web Hosting
Choosing the right hosting for your website is one of the ways to protect your e-commerce store. Some hostings are good for startups and online businesses, while others are more suitable for personal blogs and the like. Some of them can provide more safety than others.
When choosing a hosting plan you need to choose the one that gives you more security. If necessary, educate yourself by reading articles and reviews on different hosting providers.
Hosting providers usually offer three affordable hosting options:
- Shared hosting
- Virtual Dedicated Server or Virtual Private Server (VDS or VPS)
- Dedicated server
- Cloud Hosting service is gaining more and more popularity.
Unlike the shared hosting and server, a dedicated server adds another level of security to your website. Unlike shared hosting (all virtual hosting plans are shared) a dedicated server is more protected from security breaches and other issues.
Cloud hosting is a more superior web hosting solution than a dedicated server. Cloud hosting services include making e-commerce websites more accessible by utilizing cloud resources. Deployment of web hosting solutions doesn’t occur on one server, unlike traditional web hosting. In cloud hosting, a network of connected physical and virtual cloud servers hosts the website to ensure greater scalability and flexibility. It’s cost-efficient with an excellent backup and recovery system.
#3 Use a Reliable E-commerce Platform
When you create an online store on the SaaS platform, you won’t have as much independence in managing the store’s software. However, by subscribing to the cloud service platforms you should expect professional help in building, hosting and taking care of the security concerns.
Good SaaS e-commerce provider will constantly monitor your store for security issues and take care of the technical aspects of your online store.
The most prominent Saas platforms are:
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- WIX and others
To name several self-hosted (open-source) e-commerce platforms, these are Magento and WordPress + WooCommerce. To choose the most suitable one among all available SaaS and open-source platforms you should learn all the pros and cons of every platform, dig through the installation and usability tutorials, compare software and only then make a final decision. For example, to get acquainted with Magento, you can start with this Magento tutorial for beginners. To learn more about BigCommerce and its main features, you might want to start with their knowledge base. As for the Shopify platform, you can find all the needed information in this Shopify tutorial.
#4 Protect an Online Store with Firewall
Another thing you need to do to keep your site secure is to use plugins and firewall software. These protect your site from cyber threats, such as cross -site scripting or SQL injections.
You don’t need this protection with SaaS platforms, but with open-source ones – firewalls are essential. For example, for WooCommerce on WordPress these are security plugins like “Wordfence”, “All in One Security and Firewall”, “iThemes Security”, and so on.
A firewall refers to a network security system, acting as a network gateway that secures connections passing through and blocks harmful threats. Because e-commerce websites receive high incoming traffic, installing a firewall for safety is essential.
The two types of firewalls suitable for e-commerce include the following:
- Application Gateways: Protect e-commerce stores from outside sources, allowing authorized data to pass through.
- Proxy Firewalls: This network security system filters messages or data at the application layer.
#5 Secure Your Website With SSL Certificates
An SSL certificate is needed to create an encrypted connection that provides safe authentication for a website. Therefore, if you want to conduct any commercial activity on your website, you need an SSL certificate in order for any process that takes place to be safe.
In addition, availability of an SSL certificate proves that this is you who owns a website. This means it will be much harder for hackers to use your website as a duplicate for phishing operations.
#6 Backup Regularly
Backing up your data is important. When choosing hosting for your store, make sure it backs up regularly. It is also vital to understand where the hosting provider stores these backups. To stay safe, these copies should be stored separately, on different servers. However, most companies ignore regular data backups. As a result, if the hard drive fails or in the occurrence of a power outage, these stores lose all data.
Make sure your site is regularly backed up to a secure and remote server. If your website gets hacked or disabled, you can easily restore it. Having a backup copy of the site is the basic protection of the online store from almost every threat. To conveniently backup e-commerce stores built on open-source platforms, merchants can use third-party plugins or extensions.
#7 PCI Compliance
If your business accepts credit or debit card payments, you need to follow the regulations set by the PCI Security Standards Boards. These rules will ensure that any financial data stored in your store is protected. If you do not comply with PCI regulations, you may face hefty fines. Not to mention, your customers’ information remains vulnerable to hackers and data breaches.
#8 Use Strong Passwords
For some people it is difficult to remember complex passwords with special characters and numbers in upper and lower case letters. However, to protect your website, you must follow these guidelines. Your clients should do the same.
Of course, no one likes to keep these long passwords in mind, but they greatly reduce the chances of your site being hacked. Plus, the good news is that with today’s cloud technology no one actually has to remember their password. With enterprise password management in the cloud, it will be much easier for your team to handle all their accounts without compromising sensitive data.
Additionally, find ways of encouraging your stay to never repeat passwords for other systems that you use by coming up with schedules that update all your passwords. You can find tools that help you develop new passwords and make your sites accessible with a master password.
#9 Use Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication is a must-have if you want to implement a safe login process. It requires users to provide an additional piece of information. This can be anything – a one-time password or a physical token. These will serve as another level of user confirmation for logging in.
Typically, two-factor authentication allows users to have:
- The username and passwords they know
- Code to be sent to their phones, email, or an authentication app
Two-factor authentication has been around for quite some time, and you’ve probably used it already with other services and online stores (as a customer). Now, it’s time to use it for your online store as well. Depending on the e-commerce platform you use, this feature can be provided out-of-the-box or with different security plugins.
It also ensures that the user can only access the service even if their password is at risk, as these processes can block over 99% of cyber-attacks.
#10 Keep Your Website Updated
When using the SaaS platform you don’t need to think about upgrading and updating your online store. Provider does everything for you. For the open-source platforms, non-updatable plugins, extensions, and applications will make your e-commerce store an easy target for hackers and other intruders.
Keeping your website and server software up to date with the latest minor security releases is one of the best (easiest) steps you can take to secure your business.
#11 Train Your Employees
In addition to all the security tips mentioned above, you should also educate your team about the laws and regulations regarding the best practices of user data protection.
For example, they should never share their admin login or password. Another point is you should trust those employees who have access to confidential customer information. After the employee leaves, you need to revoke all access rights to prevent third-party penetration.
#12 Beware of Any Malicious Activity
Simply put – be vigilant. If you do not want any malicious activity or attack to occur on your website, you need to constantly monitor and react to any suspicious activity.
You can set up a special monitoring system and track all the actions on the site in real time. In case of any questionable activity or transaction, you will be notified. For example, a scammer uses different types of credit cards to place multiple orders or make purchases, but they do not own these cards.
#13 Offer Staff Training For Phishing
One of the largest contributors to security breaches has to be phishing attacks. This attack happens when hackers use SMS or emails to impersonate legitimate clients and steal personal information. These emails seem legitimate enough that most people end up leaking sensitive information about your store, including client bank details.
So, to curb this from happening, get your staff involved by implementing security training on phishing and making it compulsory. Take time to develop phishing campaigns that make your employees aware of what they need to look out for, how to prevent attacks, report them, and force real-time reporting, among many more.
Final Thoughts
All mentioned methods of website protection will ensure the safety of your e-commerce business.
It’s vital to understand that even a little negligence on your part will create a significant risk for your business. You need to know how to protect your website from these threats and be capable of dealing with any security issue
