Top 10 Security Tips for eCommerce Websites (New Guide)

Ecommerce websites offer a host of benefits that let you expand your horizons by setting up a virtual store. Although there are various technologies that let you create eCommerce websites, the choice should ideally be made on the basis of security requirements. These requirements vary based on certain factors like website traffic, size of the catalogue and the total sales volume.

Recently we have published article on our blog about Keeping Your E-Commerce Site Secure: A Guide and this time we have come up with updated latest guide for Best Security tips for your eCommerce store.

Accordingly, businesses must incorporate security measures to safeguard customer data. Since eCommerce websites deal with confidential data like names, addresses, credit card details, and bank details, there is a need for these websites to meet certain security standards. So let us discuss some of the most effective security measures that you can incorporate right away.

1. Cheap SSL certificates – The least you can do

Never start an eCommerce website without an SSL certificate because the very nature of an eCommerce business demands an additional layer of security. As these certificates help encrypt the communication exchanged between the client and the server, it establishes a fairly secure private network. This becomes essential for eCommerce websites as sensitive financial information is exchanged. So, consider the best cheap SSL certificate available, even if you are just starting off with your eCommerce website as it will be cost-effective and offers strong security.

2. The Right Web Hosting

Most online businesses make one common blunder — they choose a random web hosting company. For the most part, your web hosting company is the custodian of your online assets and therefore you need to be extremely cautious while choosing one. It is recommended that you start by choosing a reputed service provider, but only after you confirm that the necessary security measures are in place. This includes protection against malware, DDoS attacks, regular scans, and email protection.

3. Never store financial data

The easiest way to eliminate the possibility of hackers getting their hands on sensitive customer data such as financial details is by not storing them. With that, eCommerce websites can easily avoid the liability arising from its breach. In fact, several cyber attacks have failed because the targeted websites did not store financial data. As a result, the cyberattacks were futile and could be fixed by just rolling out an email requesting the users to change their passwords. If you are wondering what you can do instead, then try tokenization. By using this technique, you’ll never have to store customer data in order to let them transact.

4. Bot-Detection Mechanism

You’d be surprised to know this but at least half of the traffic that comes to your eCommerce website isn’t genuine. In fact, it is bot traffic which may have been rolled out by your competitors in an attempt to scrape pricing related data and gain an unfair advantage over you. As a matter of fact, almost thirty percent of all bot traffic is directed by those with harmful intent. So, make sure that you have a bot recognition system in place. You could also use integrated analytics tools to keep a track of where your traffic is coming from.

5. Use Proxy Firewall

A Proxy Firewall works great when it comes to preventing malicious traffic, XSS attacks, SQL injections, and several other attacks by channelizing information. Typically, this works by making use of a proxy that mediates the communication between the server and the client. This protects your network by masking it and keeping it concealed. (Note: If you want to use a much advanced security protection, experts suggest using a top-rated VPN. We will surely tackle this specific security tool in our future articles.)

6. Set the Right Password Rules

As an eCommerce website owner, you should take the responsibility of safeguarding customer data. With an increase in the awareness of cybersecurity and the fast-evolving data security laws worldwide, it is critical that all your online store’s customers and users set strong passwords. As an eCommerce store owner, you can ensure that by setting strict password generation rules that make use of mixed cases, special characters and numbers. You could also use the two-factor authentication system on your eCommerce website to ensure additional security.

7. Use Monitoring Software

It shouldn’t be difficult to detect network intrusion with real-time security monitoring software and a strong backup plan. However, make it a point to choose one that has a periodically updated database. Also ensure that it comes with log event archive, log correlation and a wide assortment of reporting tools.

8. Use CDNs

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) refers to a group of servers that store copies of the same content, which is then delivered based upon client request. CDNs work extremely well when it comes to preventing API abuse and reflector attacks.

9. Automatic updates

Irrespective of which Content Management System or technologies you use to run your eCommerce website, you need to keep that updated. It will fix the flaws that developers have detected or reported to them. Usually, hackers make use of such vulnerabilities to break into a network. Therefore, with an updated platform, you do the best you can to prevent this from happening.

10. Data Backup

ECommerce websites literally run on data and therefore a reliable disaster recovery plan is critical for the smooth functioning of the eCommerce business. So, you need to have a word about it with the web hosting company, well in advance. You need to have a detailed discussion about what happens when the server fails and get a fair idea of the mechanism that cascades the server’s responsibilities onto another machine.

Usually, reputed data centres make use of multiple servers and when the main server fails, another one takes over. Again, this “taking over” requires the use of certain technologies that determine its performance. So, don’t get carried away by what hosting companies claim about high availability and uptime. Instead, spend time discussing the disaster recovery plan that the service provider has in place. Also, make it a point to have automatic daily backups in order to avoid loss of data.

11. Protect Your Data

If you have other people working on the back end of your e-commerce site, it is important to have security protocols in place to protect user data and limit potential data breaches, which would negatively impact your brand. By implementing a Zero Trust security model, you can better protect your e-commerce business.

Conclusion:

If you are using Magento as eCommerce platform, You can get help from our expert developers help to fix any security related issue with online store or you can Magento Security Patches Installation Service

Of all the above-mentioned security tips, the most important one is to have at least a cheap SSL certificate in place, in order to ensure encrypted communication. However, you’ll have a sound eCommerce security plan in place if you also incorporate the other eCommerce security tips that we have mentioned. When combined, these ten eCommerce security tips should reduce the attack surface besides protecting financial and other sensitive information.