Pandemic has changed the way the world actually was. People are afraid and do not prefer to go out for shopping. This has made an inclination towards online shopping. Physical stores are also making a shift to online stores. Well, shifting from offline to online store or starting an online business might seem an exciting activity but managing e-commerce website is no fun at all.
As the need of e-commerce business has increased, the levels of breaches have also increased. Entrepreneurs need to focus on the security of their e-commerce website as digital world is prone to attacks such as ethical hacking, transactional frauds, etc. Out of different kinds of frauds, online transactions are the main area of interest for hackers. Hackers can get access to important information via e-skimming, malwares, outdated codes, DDoS, injections, etc. Thus, if you have your online business and run an e-commerce website, you need to make sure that the platform you use for transaction is fully secured. Reason being you cannot lose sensitive data, money as well as your customer.
So, how you can keep your data secured ensuring that you have a secured payment gateway? Don’t have any idea? We will let you know how you can secure your e-commerce website.
- Choose an authentic web hosting service: For managing e-commerce website you need to choose a better web hosting service. Apart from considering price that fits in your budget you must consider factors like offered services, uptime, specifications of hardware, security, storage, dedicated resources, traffic handling capacity and other services. Some web hosting sites offer SSL certification that provides security to the content and data on your website.
Thus, you need to select web hosting platform that stores backup of your online data frequently. Also it should have 99.9% uptime and should be accessible 24X7. You can select cloud hosting service as it provides additional security features.
- Choose a reliable e-commerce platform: If you own your e-commerce website you ought to make sure that it uses high quality payment gateway to ensure security of sensitive data. Your platform should take care of security patches and also keep your customers informed.
The other way is to choose a retail platform. There are many retail platforms that offer website building and provide reliable services in terms of security and privacy. They have tie ups with secured payment gateways which provides high level security from hacking and cyber crimes.
- Cover your website with HTTPS: For a secured connection, your website should be on HTTPS page. Using HTTPS pages ensures secured transactions and interactions with your customers. Ever wondered why websites have that lock before URL address? It shows that your e-commerce website is secured with SSL (Secure Shell Layer). This new feature offered by Google enhances secure connection as well as increases your SERP ranking which lets you to bag more customers.
- Update your website regularly: Hackers are always up to date and if your website is not then it is vulnerable to attack. If your website is not updated by any means, bots do not crawl through your website and if there is anything wrong it cannot be detected. Thus, updating your e-commerce website time to time is very important.
It is recommended to use updated software to match the trending technology. Even if you do not have anything to update, try changes in catalogue or content for the bots to recognize anything fishy. Ask your customers to keep changing their passwords. You can also use 2F authentication to avoid unauthorized access to the accounts.
- Make sure to follow PCI DSS Compliance: The payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements that ensures a secure environment for transactions. It provides protections from credit card frauds and data breaching. As soon as you add PCI compliant gateways to your website, it ensures smooth operations while enabling end-to-end encryption. If it finds anything wrong, it stops the transaction at that moment.
- Make sure to use CDN networks: Content delivery network (CDN) is the network of servers that keeps your website content in the proxy servers. To put simple, it replicates data of your website on the server where your site is hosted and fetch it instantly once it is in use. CDN networks protect your website from malfunctions such as DDoS which disrupts the normal traffic and delay the loading of the required page.
- Take regular backups: Regular data backup is important as you can retrieve your data any time even after it is hacked. Although there are several online tools available that keep backup of your e-commerce website but your web hosting service should have automatic backup feature.
- Run vulnerability tests: It’s good if you update your e-commerce website regularly. If you run security and vulnerability tests time to time, it will add on to security. Many virus attacks slowly take charge of your website and running vulnerability tests periodically will ensure to troubleshoot any kind of malfunction.
Your customers trust you and having a secure e-commerce website is very important for your business. By taking above mentioned precautions you can protect your website from becoming a target for hackers. Keep updating your security patches to ensure you have a malware free e-commerce website.
What kind of security measures you use for your e-commerce website? Do tell us in comments below. In case you need any assistance, we are always ready to help you.