For sellers, using e-commerce websites for online transactions has many advantages: for example, using lower marketing costs can gain more users' attention, save rent for facade houses, water and electricity fees, etc., and do not need to reserve a large number of goods. In a word, online stores can open your business with the least budget.
For buyers, they also like to nest on the comfortable sofa, and they can browse and buy millions of products with their fingers. According to the Statista report, e-commerce sales are expected to reach 4.5 trillion dollars in 2021. However, when the whole world likes something, it will also attract other unnecessary attention. According to the annual cyber crime report (ACR) of the cyber security company, the loss caused by cyber crime is estimated to reach US $6 trillion annually by 2021.
Although there are many cyber crimes in the e-commerce industry, and we do not want to talk about them, it is time to have a good understanding, because no matter how large the online store is, protecting your website from cyber attacks is crucial to the survival of any e-commerce enterprise.
In this article, we will give 10 suggestions on strengthening the security of e-commerce websites:
1. Select the appropriate virtual host service
When the budget is tight, you may choose more cheap hosting services, thinking that the services of all hosting sites are the same. But this is not the case. Factors such as website security, running speed, search engine optimization, and website traffic handling capacity depend largely on your hosting environment.
When you choose a virtual hosting service, be sure to investigate what security measures they have taken to protect the customer's website. Do they provide the latest server software, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack protection, hacker protection, automatic backup, daily malware scanning, spam protection, and e-mail protection?
In addition, some virtual host vendors will provide additional security protection functions to improve their host services. Therefore, these security factors need to be taken into consideration when selecting appropriate virtual host services.
2. Keep updating your software
One of the most common reasons for security vulnerabilities is that software is not updated in time. Fortunately, a simple solution is to update your software.
If your e-commerce website uses WordPress, please update all components, such as WordPress software, plug-ins, themes, etc., as long as the update is available. If you are not using the WordPress site, you still need to follow to update. Whether it is a web server or a third party such as Java, Python, Perl, WordPress and Joomla - as long as a new version is released, it should be updated on the system immediately.
Because software development teams often fix the vulnerabilities of old versions before releasing new versions. Without upgrading, hackers can easily take advantage of the security vulnerabilities of the old version to carry out network attacks.
3. Configure and install the web firewall
Properly configuring the firewall is an important measure for website security protection. It can provide you with powerful defense functions to resist distributed denial of service (DDoS), SQL injection, cross site request forgery and other attacks. The firewall continuously monitors any suspicious traffic or requests and intercepts them before they reach the website. The most important thing is that it is not expensive for small enterprises to configure website firewalls.
4. Forced use of strong password
Most e-commerce websites let their users create an account to complete transactions. If the buyer registers an account on your website and uses a weak password, his account can easily become the target of network attacks.
Accounts with simple passwords are easy to be attacked by hackers, and your website will also be vulnerable to attacks. This is why you should require users to use strong passwords. If your website uses WordPress, you can use plug-ins such as "Enforce strong password" to force the use of strong password. If it is not a WordPress website, let the developers set conditions in the code: passwords can be accepted only when the minimum number of characters includes uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.
In addition, people are used to using the same password for multiple accounts. Therefore, if hackers break your customer's password, they can also use this password account to visit other websites.
5. Use dual authentication
Most financial institutions enable dual authentication when users conduct transactions. Users must use another additional security layer to trade with traditional passwords. At present, the two most popular authentication methods are sending authentication code or dynamic password (OTP) to the user's mobile phone. Then, the user needs to provide this verification code to conduct further transactions.
You can also use dual authentication in online stores. If you are using the WordPress website, you can use the Google Authenticator plug-in to enable dual authentication (2FA).
6. Obtain PCI certification
Certification to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is critical for businesses that accept credit/debit card payments, regardless of their size. The PCI Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) guide lists various requirements that must be met to obtain PCI certification, which can help you identify vulnerabilities in payment transactions.
Therefore, it is necessary to change the security of payment to meet its standards, and then use tools such as Comodo HackerGuardian to scan its PCI compliance. After obtaining the report, submit the SAQ, scan report and other necessary documents to your bank. If everything meets its requirements, your company will be PCI DSS certified.
7. Install SSL certificate
Installing SSL certificates is an important part of obtaining PCI authentication. Sectigo SSL The certificate can achieve the following purposes:
OV and EV SSL certificates require verification of the identity of the website owner. This step helps prevent users from becoming victims of phishing attacks. Encrypt the connection between the user's browser and the website server. Enable the HTTPS protocol and display a security padlock in front of the domain name in the address bar.
Unsafe warning before deleting domain name in browser.
Improve your website's ranking in search engine results. It provides a security similar to insurance in the unlikely case of encryption failure.
Ruicheng Information In addition to the Sectigo SSL certificate, there are other world-famous brand certificates, such as Digicert , Geotrust , Positive SSL certificate of other brands.
8. Don't store customer sensitive information
Some e-commerce websites hope to collect as much customer information as possible in order to analyze consumer behavior and make effective marketing plans. Some online stores also let customers save their credit card/debit card numbers, CVV passwords and other relevant data to their accounts to provide a good user experience during the transaction settlement process.
Although it is convenient for users, the risk of storing sensitive customer data on your server is high. If hackers break your system and gain access to user information, your company may have to pay huge fines for data leakage. Only a large e-commerce company with an internal network security team and continuous commitment to website security protection can bear such risks. For small or new e-commerce sites, the risk of data leakage outweighs the benefits of storing customer data.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution - use third-party online payment (such as PayPal, Alipay, WeChat, etc.) to reduce payment risk. These programs can enable saving payment details without saving details to the server.
9. Backup data regularly
No matter how secure your website is, you need to develop an effective and tested disaster recovery backup plan (DRP). On the one hand, you need to ensure that the virtual host automatically performs data backup. On the other hand, you need to perform regular backup on your own terminal.
Not only hacker events, but also network viruses, human errors, system failures or natural disasters and many other reasons may lead to data leakage or loss. Therefore, regularly back up your data in different storage.
CodeGuard Automatically back up your website every day, and encrypt and save the data on the AWS server. If you have any questions, you will always have your own copy of the website for a rainy day!
10. Strengthen data security awareness training for employees
First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the training on data security for e-commerce practitioners, such as not sharing customer sensitive data in chat or email. Secondly, improve the ability to deal with security issues, such as how to avoid phishing attacks. Improving the security awareness of relevant employees is also an important way to effectively reduce network security risks.
Of course, the above suggestions are only the basic methods for building a secure website, which can avoid many common network attacks. These 10 pieces of network security advice are not enough. If you want e-commerce websites to remain strong and secure, you need to constantly update security technology every day.
This article is reproduced in //www. racent.com/blog/10-secu rity-tips-for-ecommerce-website
