Do you own an e-commerce store? Well, if you do then you must be aware that hackers are always looking to make you prey. As a matter of fact, there are three types of people you should be aware of, the people who are looking to buy from your store, those who are looking to steal directly from you and those who want to steal from your buyers. In other words, there are many people out there who are looking to bring down your business!
So, security should be your top most priority if you own any type of e-commerce store. This is where you have to get it right the first time given that recovering from any mistakes is never that easy and almost impossible if you are a startup. Now, how do you ensure security for your e-commerce security? Let’s a dig deeper and give your some of the pointers.
1. Use SSL Certificates
The first thing you would want to do is secure the connections between your user browser and your server and you can do so using what is known as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificates. SSL is just a protocol and SSL certificates are some piece of code that you install on your web server to initiate the secure connection between the server and browser. Once installed, you will notice that the protocol of communication changes from HTTP to HTTPS whilst also activating the padlock in your domains URL.
There are two types of SSL certificates you can go for, the Standard SSL certificates and the Extended Validation or rather, EV SSL certificates. The EV SSL Certificate is much more powerful and the most recommended in the case of ecommerce sites that deal with very sensitive information. Why go for EV SSL Certificates?
There are a number of benefits for choosing EV SSL Certificates but perhaps the biggest of them all is that is serves to differentiate your business from any other sites masquerade as yours hence tricking your users. Getting an EV SSL Certificates is much tougher given that you are bound through a thorough and globally standardized identity verification process compared to the verification procession you would go through, in standard verification process. That said, EV SSL Certificates will go a long way in increasing user trust levels which will turn improve your business conversions.
2. Store Information You Only Need
When it comes to storing customer data, less is always more. Of course you might be tempted to capture user data for the purposes of business analytics. Say things like demographic data, CRM information. While this is a smart idea, you should desist from capturing any data that might put you in a very compromising situation in matters law. We are talking of the fact that you are legally responsible for any data captured in the pre-sale phase. You are even prohibited from keeping some information on your databases e. g CVS numbers.
You should be aware that your consumers are becoming wary of sharing their information online thus you are bound to scare more if you have some complex forms to capture data. Long story short, you are better off outsourcing some services to third parties like PayPal who would help you deal with contentious data. After all, you do not want to put all your eggs in one basket right?
3. Choose Third Party Partners Carefully
Although processing transactions and handling other business functions in-house is much cheaper, third parties can come in handy in streamlining your business. For instance, you can outsource your financial transactions to payment services like Skrill, Paypal or WorldPay. This way you the responsibilities of dealing with compliance standards and data protection is completely outsourced to a company capable of dealing with such transactions. The key here is that you choose a third party service vendor you can trust to keep your consumer data. In this regards, you should do a background check of the company to ensure that you are handing over your data to a company capable of keeping it safe.
4. Cross-Check Information before Shipping
As a rule of the thumb, you should invest some time in cross-checking all your orders to ensure that the right information is captured and used when shipping the goods. This would be particularly useful if your ecommerce deals with tangible goods and not digital products like eBooks where consumers expect them to be delivered almost instantly. Regardless, you should always strive to verify the authenticity of every order made on your ecommerce site. You should cross check to ensure things like discounts and coupon codes are valid before moving on to ship the order.
5. Educate Your Consumers
You should also ensure that your consumers know how to protect their information and how to spot malicious behavior on your website and what to do when they find any suspicious behavior. Basically, you should offer your consumers some basic education on their need to take an active role when it comes to protecting their data.
6. Use DDOS Protection Services
Apart hackers who want to steal information, there are those attacks who will want to deny your users services in what are known as Denial of Service attacks. One way to reduce these type of attacks is by blocking of unwanted traffic, something that can be done using managed DNS services to transaction capacity and making it more difficult for DDoS attacks to be successful. This calls for a cloud based DDOS service where you will route your entire traffic before it gets to your website.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you should always work to protect your ecommerce website from the escalating number of attackers on the web. After all ecommerce security is one of the key factors that will determine if your business turns out into a success or not.
