E-commerce platforms are particularly targeted by cybercriminals. This is because entrepreneurs often neglect, or even ignore, the security of their site, which is however an essential aspect for the growth of their business. Moreover, the financial transactions that take place on these platforms as well as the richness in quantity and quality of the personal data they contain make them one of the main targets of hackers. Knowing that the importance of the security of an e-commerce platform is no longer to be demonstrated, Simplypay proposes a summary of the best practices to have to secure its site.
By opting first for a secure web host
Of course, there is a plethora of e-commerce solutions that can meet the needs of the majority of e-commerce platforms. But the best solutions are those that guarantee you optimal protection. Whether it is at the level of the creation of the platform or its hosting, it is necessary to have a complete solution.
In this sense, avoid e-commerce platforms that are not well known. You also need to activate an SSL certificate on your platform.
Keeping your platform up to date
Safety is not a given. Far from it! Just as hackers are constantly looking for new vulnerabilities and security holes to exploit, so software engineers are constantly fixing them.
For this reason, don’t neglect updating your management system or any digital solution you use. In many cases, updates are installed automatically without any intervention on your part, but if this is not the case, make sure that everything is up to date on your store.
By conducting regular analyses of your e-commerce site
There are quite a few techniques that cybercriminals use to try to hack into e-commerce platforms. Many of these cyber threats are based on vulnerabilities found on your platform. That’s why you, as the owner of an online store, need to identify these potential vulnerabilities and fix them.
There are a number of tools you can use depending on the platform you use to analyze, identify and protect your e-commerce site. There are also solutions on the Internet to do the same thing.
By using a firewall
You can put in place several levels of protection to strengthen and secure your e-commerce site. The most effective solutions that currently exist are not legion. There is the use of a Web Application Firewall for the online security of a site or an application by controlling the inputs and outputs to prevent any type of attack.
By enabling two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication is an additional security option found on most e-commerce platforms. It provides 100% security for access to your admin panel.
The 2FA as it is called, is a process that leads you to provide two modes of identification. It is not to be trivialized and that is why some platforms require it.
Protecting your computer
Ultimately, the best way to protect yourself from cyber threats is to be alert. You must avoid getting hacked at all costs by necessarily and sufficiently protecting your computer that you use to log in to the admin area. A malicious person can go through your computer to easily get the connection information to your site. That’s why you must :
- Keep your terminal’s operating system up to date with the latest security patches
- Be careful with everything you download to the computer
- Install a good antivirus software and keep it up to date
- Never connect to the administration space of your e-commerce platform from a public wifi network without first activating a VPN
- Surf the Internet securely.
By backing up your platform
The best way to protect your e-commerce site against cyber threats is to back it up frequently.
No solution or method guarantees you total protection against a cyber-attack. Cybercriminals are constantly looking for security holes and developing new techniques.
Backing up your site regularly minimizes the risk of loss, as you will be able to recover your site more easily in case of hacking or malware infection. The backup can be done automatically or manually depending on the platform you are on.
By entrusting all payment-related matters to experts
If you decide not to keep any of your customers’ private data on your website unless absolutely necessary, you limit the risk of data leakage. For your payments, you can use Simplypay‘s encrypted payment tunnels to process payments. Most shopping sites offer this possibility. It is also preferable to choose a payment platform that is compatible with your hosting company and your CMS.
By training your employees
Social engineering is a technique that hackers use to trick an employee into doing something rash. The solution to this type of attack is to train and educate your employees on data security. This allows them to be aware of the risks that their actions may entail, to know how to handle security tools, to choose the right passwords, etc.
Paying attention to your scripts and plugins
It is possible for most CMS and e-commerce platforms to add features to its site. However, the plugins or PHP, ASP or Javascript scripts that this requires can be corrupted. In spite of their great usefulness, there is a risk of security holes and bugs in these additions.
To limit the risks, install plugins and scripts that come from reliable sources and check the date of the last updates, the extension’s publisher, the age and the notoriety of the extension before any installation.
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