Securing the future of e-commerce: How companies can protect themselves from cyber attacks

The e-commerce domain is flourishing and making waves, raking in enormous revenue and becoming the new commerce. But, just as it thrives, it also attracts a host of malicious elements and compels companies to lay heavy emphasis on security infrastructure and protocols. The magnitude of loss is enormous when security breaches occur. Industry statistics show that cyber-attacks account for an annual loss that is in terms of billions of dollars. This casualty magnitude forces e-commerce players to up their game of security and keep their business safe. Therefore, let’s take a look at how you can bolster your e-commerce security and avoid breaches.

Regular checks and safeguarding private information
Protect sensitive and personal information of the customer. This is to say that you must prioritize the safety of sensitive customer information. One effective way to go about this is the use of HTTPS with SSLs. This is a highly commendable security approach because it not only protects sensitive information but also safeguard user data as well. Moreover, it is equally important to have a regularly updated HTTPS to rank high on Google’s search page. This is quite the case, as things stand, since Google now places HTTPS as a ranking factor. It is also vital to conduct regular security checks and audits to ensure that there is no breach.

Since a majority of e-commerce platforms come with default passwords that are inherently weak and easy to guess, it is of utmost importance to have secure servers and admin panels. That said, regular changing of passwords is the key to robust security, and not doing so would mean exposure to preventable hacks. To that end, you must consider adopting complex passwords and usernames with regular changes of the same. Furthermore, restrict the user access and user role on the admin panel. You can enable the admin panel to notify you of any login attempt by an unknown IP, thereby significantly improving your web store’s security.

Online payment security
To process online payments securely make sure your site is PCI DSS compliant. This takes us to the importance of payment gateway security, and the key to it lies in knowing what not to do vis-à-vis payment processes. For starters, you should completely refrain from storing credit card numbers on your database. Doing so is the perfect recipe for a liability that can expose your site to hackers. Falling victim to a security breach will mean putting your brand’s reputation at risk. As such, you should consider availing of third-party payment services and perform transactions off-site. 

Deploy effective firewalls to keep away suspicious networks from your brandstore. Such networks include the likes of XSS and SQL injections. The thing with firewalls is that they help regulate healthy traffic for your site by keeping at bay untrusted networks that can compromise your site security. It does this by offering selective permeability and limit traffic to trusted networks, effectively filtering out untrusted traffic. 

Choose a secure platform carefully
Get a dedicated and secure e-commerce platform that is protected at a platform level from cross-site request forgery (CSRF), cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, broken authentication, and insecure direct object references. Opt for a platform that offers end-to-end integrated services along with an integrated payment gateway. It goes without saying that choosing a secure e-commerce platform is of paramount importance. Only then can you avail top-notch security and ward off cyber-attacks. 

To sum it up, you must have in place a solid e-commerce platform, a well-trained staff efficient in cybersecurity protocols, a threat-aware client base, and general alertness for malicious cyber elements. In a nutshell, you must equip your e-commerce company in such a manner as to identify threats and deal with the same if the need arises.

Authored by Sushant Puri, Cofounder, ANS Commerce