To strengthen your website security and eliminate cyberattacks, here are 10 basic steps to follow to secure your e-commerce payments.
With the zeal to increase revenue and take the business to the next level, SMBs (Small and medium-sized businesses) have started to make a switch to the online platform.
An e-commerce business can generate income on a 24×7 basis without any restriction. This round-the-clock purchasing facility even keeps the door open for fraudsters to look for vulnerabilities.
They continuously monitor websites and web pages and the moment a loophole is encountered they either steal the banking data or other relevant information or look for a ransomware attack.
Here arises the need to understand how an e-commerce fraud occurs and how you can tighten your e-commerce security.
How Does An E-commerce Fraud Occur?
Card-not-present (CNP), is a term that is bound to online purchases. It means the cardholder is not physically present when making an online purchase.
This is where the hackers come into force. They grab the opportunity to steal credit cards and make a CNP purchase. The two common and emerging e-commerce payment security breaches are mentioned below
- Stolen credit card usage – Fraudulent use of your credit card details to make a huge purchase and send it to re-shippers, to collect the stolen merchandise.
- Card testing – Cybercriminals make minute transactions to check if the account number is working or not. They make a copious number of such purchases resulting in unnecessary transactions. This comes under velocity attack.
How To Keep Your E-Commerce Website Secure
To further strengthen your website security and make sure you do not fall prey to any cyberattack, below are described a few basic steps to keep your e-commerce website secure.
1. Maintain PCI Compliance
Any e-commerce website that deals with the credit or debit card information of a purchaser must comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards.
Even the ones that rarely deal with transactions must comply with PCI.
PCI standards were set to ensure that there is no leak of credit card information of an e-commerce buyer to a third-party source.
Firewall protection to safeguard customer data, an antivirus to secure the website, and securing customer data are a few requirements to implement to the PCI standards.
2. Enable Fraud Protection Tools
Fraud protection tools act as an additional layer of security to your payment gateways.
Depending upon your need you must incorporate a few fraud protection tools to avoid any loss of revenue.
You can add CVV (Card Verification Value), Address Verification Value, unmatched refunds, and velocity filter as some of the tools.
A few of the tools are free of cost while others come with a monthly charge, but mark my words, the investment is worth it.
3. Use HTTPS To Secure Your Website
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a trending security that ensures the security of your website. It is signified by the grey padlock on the address bar.
The communication to and from your website occurs in an encrypted form once you are secured with an HTTPS mark. You need to have an SSL certificate installed on your website to get that grey padlock.
There are various low-priced or cheap SSL certificates available with website hosts or other third-party certificate authorities and resellers.
4. Choose A Secure E-Commerce Platform
E-commerce platforms are chosen for the designs and functionality they offer, but an often neglected factor is the security of the platform. It is mandatory for you to settle for an e-commerce platform that considers security above all.
It should have an SSL certificate, encrypted payment gateways, and authentication protocols. Also, look at what the platform holds for you in the future.
You must consider if they have a space for you to flourish with your growing business needs.
Also see: Debutify Shopify Theme Review 2024 – Is It Worth It?
5. Update Platform And Software
Every software or platform update comes to fix the bugs and flaws in the previous version. These flaws and bugs are not hidden from the hacker’s eyes.
They look for e-commerce websites that have loopholes and find ways to intrude into them. For this reason, you need to keep your software and platforms updated.
You can additionally, install antivirus and anti-malware protection to give that additional security to your website.
6. Collect Only Relevant Customer Data
Think of the situation where you have to write to your customers that you lost their personal or financial data. Sounds scary, right?
Data hacks or breaches can be encountered by any business at any time. To avoid the damage caused by it, it is better that you take in only the relevant customer data.
Don’t ask for unnecessary information while making transactions that even the customer hesitates to give. The lesser the saved data, the less the chances of damage caused by the hack.
7. Abide By Good Password Hygiene
Passwords and authentication protocols need to be extremely strong. Your password policies must be so firm that no third-party source can hack the password.
Ensure that complicated passwords are used by the customers.
You can even incorporate a two-factor authentication policy where apart from inputting the password authentication is done through biometric verification or entering an OTP generated on another device.
8. Employ Website Monitor And Reconcile Accounts Daily
There is a constant urge to monitor the website. You cannot monitor transactions only on a weekly basis, as a hack can occur on any day of the week and at any time.
So, you need to be on your toes and look for any unnecessary small transactions or mismatched shipping.
9. Pair CAPTCHA With The Hosted Payment Form
CAPTCHA is a combination of distorted numbers or letters or classifying a picture to differentiate whether you are a human or a machine.
Applying this method to the transaction page diminishes the chances of a security breach and helps to know if a genuine transaction or a counterfeit transaction is occurring.
10. Educate Your Employees About The Latest Frauds
Your team must know when an attack is happening and how they can overcome that breach. Take regular sessions telling your employees about the latest frauds and the ways to prevent them.
Also, it is important to work in an environment that has a security-related mindset.
Final Thoughts
To flourish in the online market with ease, it is necessary to build and maintain customer trust. This trust comes when you provide a secure payment platform to your audience. So, by abiding by the aforesaid simple tactics you could beat the hackers at many steps and set up a secure and trustworthy environment for your e-business.
