Setting up an e-commerce website helps your company to expand its target audience while establishing a simple place for customers to shop and purchase goods and services. While having an online store is often a necessity in the business world, it does pose a few security challenges. Cyberattacks are fairly common in the online business world, but you can prevent them by using these security tips to manage your company’s website.
Know Your Biggest Security Threats
If you are new to the e-commerce world, then you might not even know where to begin with implementing security measures. Take a few minutes to learn about the most common threats that affect e-commerce websites such as phishing, ransomware and SQL injection attacks. Then, explore how you can prevent each one by using strategies that make sense for your company.
Start With a Secure Hosting Service
As a new or small business, it might be tempting to choose the cheapest hosting service, but you could end up paying for it in lost trust if your business experiences a data breach. Make sure to do your due diligence and research hosting platforms to make sure that they invest in security. Ideally, you should see that a platform regularly updates its server software and offers features such as daily malware scans and email protection.
Keep the Software Up-to-Date
Software updates aren’t just there to add new features to programs. The majority of updates include security patches that can help your e-commerce website stand up to constantly evolving threats. Updating the external plug-ins and internal servers beefs up the security. While some updates can be set up to occur automatically, others might need someone to manually initiate the process. Make sure someone on your team knows how and when to update the software so that not a moment goes by when your website is vulnerable to nefarious activity.
Encourage and Enforce Strong Passwords
Data breaches often focus on obtaining as much information as possible about the people who use a specific website, and your e-commerce business might have valuable details that a hacker could use for criminal purposes, such as accessing people’s bank accounts. Passwords have long been a way to protect sensitive information, and new technology makes it possible to ensure that they are even more secure. Establishing requirements for your website’s users to create strong passwords helps to keep their data safe and secure. You can also implement strategies such as two-factor authentication to amp up the security on your site.
Double Check Security During High Sales Periods
Most e-commerce businesses have certain times of the year when sales are expected to increase, such as the holidays. These are also the times when criminals are known to increase their efforts at breaching data security. Just before the height of your sales season, make sure to perform a security check to ensure that everything is up-to-date and ready to stand up to an increase in attempted attacks.
Cybersecurity should always be at the forefront of your company’s plans for any e-commerce website. Always start by making sure that any new website is designed with the highest security protocols in mind. Then, appoint someone on your team to perform regular security checks and updates to ensure that everyone’s information remains secure.
