Ecommerce cyber security is the most important thing you can do for your business.
Not having the correct security strategy is like leaving your shop open overnight in a busy city. Someone will try and break in, and if you don’t have the correct ecommerce security measures in place you risk losing thousands of your hard earned dollars.
You can go broke overnight.
Your livelihood can be ruined in the blink of an eye.
You can’t risk it.
We’ve got four tips to improve your ecommerce cyber security.
Take ten and run through this list – your business will thank you for it!
#1. Pick a quality web hosting service
Think of your web hosting service as your child’s godparents.
It needs to be reliable.
It needs to be secure.
And it needs to have your back at all times.
Now obviously your child is much more important than your ecommerce business, but it can’t hurt to look at your ecommerce business as your baby. You would never put your baby in harm’s way, so do the same for your ecommerce business.
Tips for picking a quality web hosting service:
- Pick a dedicated hosting service over a shared hosting service.
- When you pick your hosting service, ask about the software and hardware they use.
- Ask how often they monitor their servers for malware and viruses – if they can’t give you a definite answer, choose someone else.
- Remember to always update your ecommerce platform to the new versions. These will have the latest security updates to protect your site from hackers.
#1. Train your staff
Seems simple, right?
Social engineering is one of the biggest causes of security issues and data breaches. Simple human error can bring down a business.
Protect your business from social engineering attacks by investing the time to educate yourself and any staff who operate within your business. You can save your business a lot of money by understanding how to detect and prevent these attacks.
Tips to prevent social engineering attacks:
- Tell your staff to instantly delete any suspicious emails
- Never click links from emails you aren’t expecting
- Install anti-virus software and set your spam filters to high
- Research any web URLs or phone numbers from a call or email
#3. Use a secure connection for online checkout
Your customers are a vital part of your business.
After all, if you didn’t have them you wouldn’t be working in ecommerce.
Protecting their private information is crucial to your ecommerce security strategy. You should avoid storing confidential data like credit card details and phone numbers at all costs. Storing this data can cause irreparable damage, not to mention cause a PR disaster which no one can afford.
Tips to create a secure online checkout process
- Have a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate on your website to encrypt credit card information and secure the connection.
- Don’t collect your customer’s data.
- Regularly scan your ecommerce site.
- Set up your payment gateway to include verification (CVV number).
#4. Layer your Ecommerce security
Having an effective ecommerce security strategy is crucial for business success.
It doesn’t take too long to develop and can save your business from demise if attacked.
There are a few basic tools and areas you can look at to improve your ecommerce security:
- Check your website platform’s security policy and get an understanding of what security they provide.
- Understand the tools you use and their security limitations – everything from software to hardware, even your website plugins.
- Password protection – do you use the same password for everything? Use a tool like Passpack to keep your passwords protected.
- Look at implementing basic website protective tools – i.e. contact forms, login boxes, search queries etc. These will help you protect your site and you have the added bonus of getting access to fantastic website insights when the data is pulled through to your Google Analytics account.
Contact Transdirect today for shipping you can rely on. We can provide you with consistent and effective shipping solutions no matter your business size.
