By Aaron Thomas
Ecommerce sites can be popular targets for hackers because they work with sensitive and personal information. This means cyber criminals have a lot to gain from getting in to the system. Therefore if you run an ecommerce site, you need to know the best ways to keep your business safe. Here are some great ways to improve the cyber security of your ecommerce site.
Check the security measures of the platform.
Before you choose an ecommerce platform for your site, you need to understand if it has any vulnerabilities or weak points. Do plenty of research on your platform to understand whether it is well protected or if it can be easily compromised.
It’s never possible to have a platform that will be safe forever because hackers and other cyber criminals will always look for new ways to access your information. The best way to keep your site secure is to choose a platform that offers regular updates and is trusted. If your site is based on a well-managed platform can make it much harder for you to be attacked.
Don’t hold on to customer payment information.
There are two good reasons why companies should not hold on to their customers’ payment information. Firstly, if your site gets compromised, the first thing that hackers will look for are the payment details. Secondly, you are required by regulations not to keep records of your customers’ personal data.
The risk is simply far too great without any real benefit from holding on to the information. Also, if cyber criminals know that you don’t store customer details they will know that there is nothing to be gained from hacking your site.
Provide training to staff.
Your employees are one of the most important lines of defense against cyber criminals. Unfortunately, one of the growing methods used by hackers is to access your system by first compromising the account of a member of staff. Once they can log in to your system using staff credentials it will be very difficult to establish anything is wrong until it is too late to do anything about it.
That is why it is vital to provide full training for staff on security measures and best practice. They should also be kept informed and up-to-date to any changes made to the security system.
Insist on strong passwords.
It’s still the really simple stuff that is most commonly the undoing of a website’s security; weak passwords will always be an easy way in to your system for cyber criminals. It doesn’t matter how good your platform and site security is if hackers can simply take advantage of easily-hacked passwords.
Make it a requirement for the password to be at least eight characters, and for it to feature at least one number and one capital letter.
Become PCI DSS complaint.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) are the rules that businesses have to comply with in order to process card payments. In order to do this ecommerce companies must offer adequate levels of protection for personal customer data as well as excellent access control measures. This makes it harder for cyber criminals and allows customers to trust businesses.
Becoming fully compliant with the PCI DSS rules can be difficult, especially if you are used to working one way. Therefore it’s a good idea to seek out expert advice and enjoy a bespoke solution that keeps you and your customers secure.
Monitor your site constantly.
If you believe your security system is strong, it can feel like you can just leave the site to run itself without overseeing it. This can be a massive mistake. You need to be constantly aware of your site’s status so that you can act quickly if anything suspicious occurs.
On the same note, it’s important that your server is monitored constantly and kept up-to-date as the servers themselves can be the mostly vulnerable part of the system if they are not regularly checked for malware.
