Securing an ecommerce site is no small deal. Due to the nature of data involved, it is of utmost importance that you take all the necessary steps to protect your site against cyberattacks. Because if your site is hacked, not only your business but the sensitive financial information of your customers is also at stake. And once it is stolen, they may be subject to some of the worst kinds of frauds in their life, which can shake their trust in your brand.
So how do you ensure that your ecommerce website does not get attacked by cybercriminals? Well, that is precisely what we are going to explain in this article. Here are seven steps that you can take to prevent hackers from intruding your ecommerce website:
#1. Comply with PCI DSS
Complying with PCI DSS is a must for all ecommerce websites; otherwise, you cannot accept payments on your site. If you’ve to accept payments, then you must comply with these standards, which have been set by the Payment Cards Industry. Besides being a requirement, it is also a basic duty for you if you want to ensure that all your payments are processed securely. The requirements of compliance with PCI DSS can be found here, and if you don’t know how to fulfil them, hire a cybersecurity professional to do that for you.
#2. Encourage the use of strong passwords
Strong passwords may sound like a nuisance to remember, but they protect your user accounts from being hacked by some of the most basic and old hacking techniques that are as equally effective today as they were 20 years ago. Weak passwords are easy to be cracked either by guessing or by brute force-based attacks (which is nothing but a software operated version of guessing at a much bigger scale than the capacity of humans). And once a password has been cracked, the whole user account can be compromised.
That is why you should request – if not force – all your users to set up strong passwords for their user accounts. On an internal basis, you should force all your team members to use strong passwords for the management of your ecommerce site. A strong password is one that combines at least eight characters in both upper as well as lowercase along with numbers and symbols.
#3. Use an SSL Certificate
While strong passwords protect your ecommerce site and user accounts from guessing and brute force, an SSL Certificate protects your user data from being stolen while it’s in transit. It is a technique called packet sniffing, in which someone steals the data packets being sent between your server and your visitors to capture sensitive data like usernames and passwords. When you protect your ecommerce site with SSL, your website loads over HTTPS. A basic requirement of HTTPS protocol is that all data packets are encrypted before being transmitted between your server and your users. Encrypted packets, even if captured by someone, will prove worthless because only your server can decrypt them with a private key to recover any data.
SSL certificate also protects your site from phishing attacks by adding a secured padlock before the URL of your website. It guarantees that your visitors are dealing with your official site and not with a cloned version of your site created on a similar-looking domain name. Therefore, you should also Buy an SSL Certificate for your ecommerce site and install it on your server.
#4. Use secure storage for user data
We just discussed the secure transmission of data with the help of SSL certificate and encrypted data packets over the HTTPS protocol. However, ensuring the security of data during transit is not enough. You also need to ensure it during the storage. The users’ data must be stored in encrypted form on your servers after it has been processed and used for the desired tasks. So that no one – both outside or inside your organization – can steal it and use it for their benefit. You can use 128-bit encryption on your server to protect the data of your customers.
#5. Backup your data regularly
While it may not seem like a web security task, backing up your data regularly is an essential part of preparing your site for future cyberattacks. Suppose your site data is backed up regularly. In that case, you will be able to migrate swiftly to another server in case of a cyberattack (thus reducing the damage caused by the attack significantly). The good news is that you do not need to do this task manually, as various plugins are available to automate the backup of your site if it is on WordPress. Even if it is not on WordPress, several other tools are available in the market that can be integrated with other platforms.
#6. Enable real-time security alerts and other security features
Sometimes an early warning is all you need to save yourself from problems. Trying to prevent an attack on your site is important. However, It is good to know about an attack as early as possible as it is also a part of your overall security strategy. For that, you need to enable real-time security alerts on your site. There are several tools available nowadays that scan the data and activity of your server for malicious and suspicious behaviour, and then warn you of such behaviour so you can be prepared for the worst-case scenario in advance. The good news is that many plugins and tools are available to add this functionality too in your ecommerce website.
#7. Keep checking your security systems and procedures regularly
Finally, keep evaluating your security systems and procedures put in place periodically. New vulnerabilities keep emerging, making all security systems outdated with time. Therefore, it is important to keep updating your security tools, plugins, and other systems as well from time to time to keep up with the new vulnerabilities and cybercriminals. Same goes for the security procedures that you have put in place – as time goes, laxity develops among employees regarding them, which can result in a cybercriminal taking advantage of human errors to attack your ecommerce site. To prevent that you need to ensure that all the security procedures laid out by you are being followed properly by your employees.
Conclusion
These seven steps can go a long way to prevent hackers from intruding into your ecommerce website. And even if you get attacked somehow, they will help you minimize the damage. So, implement them today and make your site secure from the problems that may come ahead. And if you still have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.
