How to Ensure the Security of Your Ecommerce Website and App
Security is essential if you want to be successful in the ecommerce industry. Businesses must use robust ecommerce protocols and security measures to protect themselves and customers from attacks
What is ecommerce security?
Ecommerce security is about protecting people who buy and sell goods and services on the internet. You need to earn the trust of your customers by implementing the fundamentals of ecommerce security.
1. Privacy
Ensuring customers’ privacy means preventing any action that could lead to the transfer of customer data to unauthorized third parties. Only a seller should have access to a buyer’s personal information and account details.
A privacy breach occurs when sellers allow others to access buyers’ information. Online businesses should use antivirus, firewall, encryption, and other data protection tools. This will go a long way in protecting customers’ credit card and bank details.
2. Integrity
Integrity is another important part of ecommerce security. Any information customers share on the network should remain unchanged. Online businesses should use customer information, without modifying it.
3. Authentication
Authentication in ecommerce means determining that the seller and the buyer are who they say they are. Ecommerce businesses must also prove that they offer genuine goods or services.
Customers are also required to provide proof of identity in order for the merchant to feel secure in online transactions. If you can’t do this, hiring a specialist will help a lot. Standard solutions include customer login details and credit card PINs.
4. Non-repudiation
Repudiation means denial. Thus, non-repudiation is a legal principle that directs players not to deny their actions in a transaction. The company and the buyer must complete the part of the transaction that they initiated.
Warning signs of fraudulent transactions
Fraudulent transactions can result in chargebacks and lost items. There are a few warning signs that online stores should look out for when considering new or unusual customer requests.
- Multiple payment methods from one IP address. It could be someone using stolen credit card numbers to send orders and receive items they can sell.
- Overseas billing or shipping addresses are a red flag. Most programs can only check addresses in the US and UK.
- A large volume of orders for one item from a new customer — this could be a scammer buying an item for resale using someone else’s credit card.
- A series of orders sent to the same address but placed using different payment methods.
Even if your website, server, and account are secure, you can still suffer from malicious activity: keyloggers and spyware on your customer’s computer allow them to steal credit card information and place fraudulent orders on your store.
If you don’t find any fraud and rush to ship the item, you will simply run out of inventory and money when chargebacks are processed. It is always best to check orders manually, even if you only check those that meet the above criteria. Some review and spot checking is always better than blind trust.
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Website security threats for your online store
Below is a quick overview of some of the most common web application security threats such as XSS, SQi, DoS, cross-site spoofing, and other activities that every store owner should be aware of.
1. SQL Injection
Did you know that it is possible to send a fake SQL command to your website by pasting the command into a form on your website? This could be the form your customers use to sign up for an email newsletter or to set up an initial consultation. To prevent this type of scam, you need to scan your site daily for SQL injection (SQi) vulnerabilities.
2. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
How do your website and the web server that hosts it handle GET requests or host executable code in the comment section of your blog posts? Ideally, unauthorized server requests loaded with malicious code designed to compromise the security of your website should be blocked from being executed.
Best practices for protecting your website from XSS:
- Make sure all site and server modules are up to date. Distinguished third-party developers continually provide updates based on common security threats. But they will not benefit your site if they are not installed.
- Use a site scanner to identify potential site security vulnerabilities.
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3. Brute Force Attacks
One way botnets are used is through brute force attacks — simply by guessing the details required to access the admin section of your e-commerce site. All that is required is a program that will try to connect with different passwords and enough time to constantly establish a connection.
Actions you can take to stop a brute-force attack:
- Use long and complex passwords with symbols, mix of lowercase and uppercase, and numbers.
- Require two-factor authentication before users can log in.
- Use a captcha or similar tool to call visitors to your login page.
- Change passwords every 3 months. Change passwords as soon as work is stopped or completed by a third-party contractor.
Two factor authentication is a free app that requires buyers to provide a one-time password in addition to their login details. To start using the addon, you need to create an account with Authy and select a tariff plan. Free includes up to 100 logins per month — more than enough for testing.
Prove that you are human and let your customers do the same with Google reCAPTCHA, providing additional protection from robots and spam. This tool is pretty simple. And you don’t need to label any symbols or choose images with street signs.
4. DoS & DDoS attacks
Both malicious actions have the same goal — to destroy your e-commerce site and make some profit from it. But they are technically different.
A DoS (Denial of Service) attack is an attempt to stop your online store full of unwanted traffic and make it inaccessible to regular users.
DDoS attack (Distributed DoS) is carried out from multiple devices or a botnet.
A botnet is a number of computers infected with some kind of malware.
Here are some security measures every small business owner should take to protect their site from DoS and DDoS attacks:
- suppression of DoS attacks is possible using a special configuration of the web server;
- use Nginx rate limiting to protect your site from malicious requests.
5. Friendly fraud
Friendly fraud accounts for 71% of trade losses according to LexisNexis. This is a type of credit card scam where a legitimate customer interacts with your e-commerce site, makes a purchase, and then changes their mind. Instead of adhering to your return policy, they send the chargeback through your credit card provider.
The Validation.com — ID Review & Fraud Prevention add-on, also available for X-Cart store owners, protects your business from chargebacks, friendly fraud, and other account hijackings for as little as $ 19 a month.
How to secure your ecommerce website
Step 1. Provide strong passwords
While passwords compete with technologies such as facial recognition and multi-factor authentication (MFA), they are still the standard passwords for most programs. We need passwords for every service or website we log in to, so many users choose the same password for multiple services. The problem with this approach is that once reused usernames and passwords have been taken by hackers, they can be applied to various services, leading to widespread scams.
If you want to learn more about the security threats for ecommerce stores, and ways to prevent breaches, read the full article here.
