Tips To Secure E-commerce Website Against Malicious Activity

It's a fact that E-commerce business is increasing rapidly with each passing day. A large number of tech-savvy people use different E-commerce sites to buy their desired products and services. As E-commerce sites deal with the sensitive details of customers, they are the prime target of hackers and cyber criminals who make several attempts to hack your site(using security loopholes) and ruin the E-commerce business.

In fact, no site on the web is free from different types of malicious activities. So, how can you protect your E-commerce site from such harmful activities? Some effective tips are detailed here below-

1. Select A Secure E-Commerce Platform

There are numerous E-commerce platforms (such as Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, etc,). All of them have specific pros and cons. While choosing an E-commerce platform, you should find out whether the platform uses a sophisticated OOP language (Object Oriented language) or not. This keeps the international network and administration panel of your site aloof from hackers. You should also inquire about the scalable security provisions and the latest version of the platform. Always use the latest version of the E-commerce platform to eliminate the security loopholes.

2. Install New Updates

Entrepreneurs use a good number of applications, templates, extensions, and plugins so that they run E-commerce websites easily and smoothly. All these applications are frequently updated by the developers. If you don't update them with new updates, they become easy targets for cyber criminals. Online bully elements always look for E-commerce sites with security loopholes. Just install the latest updates on your site and keep it safe from potential security problems.

3. Choose A Recognized Hosting Company

Running an E-commerce website is an expensive affair. Therefore, entrepreneurs try to reduce the cost of website operation by all possible means. Choosing a shared hosting is one such practice. But, when you run an E-commerce site on a shared server, you face a number of problems frequently, such as several downtimes, slow loading speed of web pages, and higher exposure of your site to online security vulnerabilities.

If hackers somehow manage to hack any one site of the shared hosting, they can easily bring all sites down. Therefore, you must choose a reliable hosting company to run your E-commerce site. Don't make haste and look for different hosting companies. Check out their previous records and try to know what their existing customers say.

After evaluating different hosting companies from various angles, select the best hosting company for your site.

4. Create a Password Security Policy

These days, individuals use different E-accounts. It is very difficult for any person to remember different passwords at all the times. So, most of the people, for their convenience, use easy and common passwords (phone numbers, names of places, relatives, pet animals, etc,) to protect their E-accounts.

Weak passwords can't protect your E-accounts when expert hackers try to hack your E-accounts. So, when you run an E-commerce site, you should have a clear a password security policy. You can take the following action in this regard-

●      Never use simple and easy passwords to protect your E-commerce site. Always create a complex password containing small and capital letters, special characters (@$%^^&%), and digits.

 

●      Change your site's password regularly. This will make it extremely difficult for hackers to hack your E-commerce site.

●      You can also use 2-factor authentication to add an additional layer of security around your E-commerce site. In this process, when someone tries to access your E-commerce site on a new computer/laptop, he/she is asked to prove his/her identity by providing an OTP.

5. Be Careful About Third-Party Service Providers

While running an E-commerce site, you deal with a number of third-party service providers such as a hosting company, call centers, payment processors, etc. All of them carry the high possibility of security breaches and malicious activities.

Before availing the services of 3^rd party service providers, always make sure that they are following the basic security practices. For example- If you buy a premium theme for your E-commerce site, make sure that it has clean coding and has no gateways for bugs or viruses.

6. Follow PCI Compliance Rules Strictly

In 2007, prominent credit card companies established the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to track the use of credit cards online and secure the flow of financial details on E-commerce websites. PCI DSS is mandatory for all E-commerce sites.

By following the rules of PCI DSS, you can ensure that all the credit card data stored on your site is completely safe and is free from the access of unauthorized 3^rd parties.

7. Use SSL And TLS With HTTPs

Financial transactions on the Internet are always fraught with several risks. When you send payment instructions to an E-store using their payment gateways, online attackers can intercept the transmission of the data easily and cause a significant damage to you.

Therefore, you should use SSL and TLS with HTTPS. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypts the links between the servers and clients and protects the transmission of data. On the other hand, Transport Layer Security (TLS) breaks the encrypted communication in two different servers. In case, one server is attacked by hackers, you can run your site with the second server.

8. Enable Your Application Firewall

To keep your E-commerce site safe from SQL injection and cross-site scripting, you must configure the application firewall. This will help you to set predefined rules which stop malicious HTTP requests from reaching your site's server.

9. Backup Your Website Date Frequently

Modern hackers are more dexterous than you think. You never know when your website will go down following an online security breach. Therefore, you should take the backup your site regularly. Even if your site is compromised by hackers, you can retrieve that easily using the backup files. For example- if you run a Magento site, you can use a backup extension to automate the backup process.

10. Block hackers with IP addresses

When you create a website, then people from all over the world can easily access it. When you see the analytics, from time-to-time, you observe a massive increase in website traffic from certain countries where you don't do E-commerce business. If you get malicious traffic on your site from certain countries, you can block them with IP addresses. If you do so, users from the blocked countries will not be able to visit your site. Therefore, you must use this option carefully.

Final Words:

Cybercriminals attack E-commerce sites with various malicious programs and ruin them once they track security loopholes. By following the above-mentioned tricks, you can easily protect your E-commerce site from various online security breaches.

Author Bio:

Linda Wester is a professional E-commerce website security expert and has sufficient knowledge of Magento. She shares her knowledge (on PSD to Magento conversion, HTML to Magento conversion, etc,) regularly with readers. If you want to get useful tips on Magento website development and E-commerce security, follow her on Twitter.