In recent years, thousands of website security breaches have harmed numerous government and private organizations. Major eCommerce websites have also been the target of malicious attacks by groups looking to steal financial and customer information, and by a variety of hacking groups who are simply looking to expose private information about a company and consumers to the public.
There are a variety of potential eCommerce security issues that pose threats today. You can increase your chance of prevention and protect your brand’s reputation by understanding what those threats are and how to avoid them.
How Can Security Issues Damage Your Reputation?
The vast majority of Americans are aware of the potential risks involved with making a purchase online. Potential security issues that pop up must be dealt with accordingly, but often do an extensive amount of damage first.
If you are a victim of a security breach, your brand image will be damaged. Large amounts of customers will use a trusted and reputable competing website and won’t recommend your company to their friends and family members.
Once news gets out about a security threat to your eCommerce website, the word will spread fast. Social media and PR outlets will be buzzing with negative press about your company and people will begin to leave fast. To avoid this type of damage, you must ensure your customers that their data is protected.
Common Security Issues for eCommerce Brands
eCommerce websites are often the targets of large scale hacks because the amount of information stored on servers and in databases within the company’s IT infrastructure has the potential to yield a high dollar amount for hackers.
The most common security threat is credit card fraud. hackers will steal credit card information from a website’s database or server, use it or sell it to the highest bidder. This could do a lot of damage to your brand’s reputation and your customers’ financial well-being.
DDoS attacks (also known as distributed denial-of-service attacks) are commonplace all over the world. The hacker’s primary goal is to make a network or server unavailable to potential users, or to slow down websites (improving website speed is a cornerstone of modern SEO and usability work). Hackers who use this as a means to take down a website are looking for notoriety and fame while enjoying the fact that they’ve created a significant amount of issues for the owner of the website.
How to Secure Your Website and Information Against These Threats
Security should be a top priority for every eCommerce business. Here are some tips courtesy of Sense of Security on how you can protect your website, your company, and your customers’ information from hackers:
- Use a secure platform – Use a secure eCommerce platform that has implemented object-oriented programming language for protecting websites.
- Secure checkout – Use a secure checkout. Your SSL certificates should be PCI compliant and up-to-date at all times. This will help protect your customers’ financial and personal information as it passes through the necessary networking channels.
- Setup Security Layers – Many eCommerce websites fail to provide extra levels of security. Add multiple levels to your website, including firewalls, search queries and login boxes. These will help protect information stored on a MySQL server.
How to Assure Your Customers About Security
Brand trust and security go hand-in-hand. If your brand can’t be trusted because of security breaches, your business might not recover.
The best way to assure your customers that everything is alright and that their data is protected is to place SSL certificates in the checkout screen near the shopping cart, and place reminder notices throughout the website informing them about what type of protection they can expect when shopping online at your store. With new technologies like Apple Pay and Square becoming more common, there are added opportunities to incorporate a halo of trust.
Make sure to be specific about the type of protection being provided. Many customers have issues with vague online statements, especially on the subject of IT matters.
If your eCommerce website is unprotected, you run the risk of losing your customer base and a significant amount of money. Implement a security plan as soon as possible to ensure your servers and databases don’t come under attack.
