Every day, thousands of e-commerce websites face vicious cyber-attacks from unrelenting hackers. Most of the time, many of their onslaughts fail while a few of them succeed. Therefore, it is necessary to take early and adequate safety precautions before disaster strikes since it is difficult to recover from its far-reaching consequences.
As this post progresses, I will disclose ten easiest ways of protecting your e-commerce website from hacker threats. I will reveal how SSL certificates, trademarking your company logo and name, using strong passwords, among other measures, can keep you on top of the hacking game.
Therefore, I welcome you to accompany me on this adventurous journey to discover how you can take charge of your e-commerce website’s security.
1. Optimize an SSL Certificate and HTTPS
The first way of securing your website against fraudsters is optimizing the power of SSL certificates and HTTPS. This technology ensures your users enjoy the encrypted connection between web servers and browsers.
This way, a security layer or link keeps all the data transferred from your website private and secure. Moreover, it makes it impossible for hackers to intercept your customers’ sensitive details and decode them before reaching the other side.
Therefore, it is safer for your customers and other stakeholders to transact on your website because their sensitive financial information is safe. This way, your customers can transact peacefully knowing thieves will not intercept their credit card and other financial information.
2. Trademark Your Company Name and Logo
Do you want to protect your e-commerce website against hacker threats? Then you should think about trademarking your company’s logo and name. According to Sonia Lakhany, a trademark lawyer, “The most important tip for business owners to protect their site and brand is to ensure [their] name is clear for use as a trademark.”
The trademark attorney adds, “Too many entrepreneurs mistakenly think that because a domain name is available or that they were able to form an LLC or corporation with their local Secretary of State that their business name or brand is available as a trademark.”
So, why is trademarking your company name and logo a protection measure? First, when you make your name and logo official trademarks, you ensure that nobody else can use them legally.
Second, registering your name and logo as trademarks ensures that they enjoy protection from future copying, infringement, and knockoffs. This way, it becomes legally difficult for malicious competitors to steal and abuse them.
Just listen to what Jon Jones, the Organic Aromas’ founder says, “We trademarked our business and last month when a Chinese seller copied not just our products but all of our ad copy and marketing content.
We were able to hit him with a cease-and-desist [letter] because our name and our products [were] protected by law.” Does this ring a bell? I hope it is a wakeup call amidst all the me-too infringers, especially these ones from China.
3. Update Your Website Regularly
Regular updates are another sure way of beefing up your e-commerce website’s security because hackers waylay many online outlets to capitalize on their vulnerabilities. By updating your website regularly.
It is easy for developers to discover broken and vulnerable links in the system and patch them on time using new software updates. Remember, attackers are not sleeping, and hence, you should be on guard against their never-ending attacks.
4. Never Store Sensitive Customer Data
Hackers and other online thieves don’t steal air, no. Instead, they steal only sensitive and valuable data you avail on your e-commerce website. Therefore, the easiest way to starve thieves is denying them what to steal—sensitive and valuable customer information.
To do this, you should never store such details on your website. Make sure that you do not collect unnecessary financial details from your users. Otherwise, you will be providing the bad boys with sufficient fodder to feed their appetite for blood money.
For example, when processing credit cards, it is better and safer to use encrypted checkouts to ensure that your own serves don’t see your customers’ sensitive credit card details.
Initially, it might inconvenience your users but eventually, they will enjoy the safety that speed cannot give them. Moreover, such a move will win and maintain your customers’ trust in your online shop.
5. Choose Your E-commerce Hosting Service Carefully
Choosing your website’s hosting company is critical to its overall safety because it will host you on its servers. Therefore, if its system is compromised, it will also compromise your website’s safety. When choosing one, make sure that safety comes first.
Otherwise, all the other features such as speed will not benefit you much. Before entrusting the company with your e-commerce website’s hosting, ensure it has an excellent backup service that guarantees easy and timely restoration after a security breach attempt or attack.
Moreover, ensure that the hosting firm operates 24/7 and has a RAID protection to guarantee an easy backup of your website on several disks. Therefore, it is prudent to choose a managed cloud-hosting platform.
Such platforms are better because they attend to your website’s security needs by allowing their administrators to utilize your websites’ admin panel to add extra security layers.
6. Conduct Regular Vulnerability Tests
Do you remember the golden rule that says you should never trust what you have not tested? Regarding e-commerce website security, conducting regular vulnerability tests is the only sure way of trusting its current security levels. Never assume that since you tested your e-commerce website last year the site is secure today.
Remember, new threats crop up daily because hackers do not sleep. So, test your website’s vulnerability regularly to ensure that it can withstand current attacks. To do this, I recommend doing the following:
- Scanning your website regularly to ensure hackers and other online fraudsters have not infected it with malware using adverts, images, and any information third parties provide
- Hiring online security experts to identify any weakness in your website’s code
7. Strong Passwords, a Must!
Passwords are critical first-level security measures you should include in your safety mix. To secure your customers’ sensitive financial details, insist that they use strong passwords hackers cannot guess.
For example, it is critical to insist on access codes that blend upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols to make them more secure.
8. Install System Alerts to Track Suspicious Activities
Installing system alerts that track suspicious activities is another easy way of securing your e-commerce website against attacks. It is prudent to track your user activities and behaviors on specific sections of your website to enable you to analyze them for security threats.
For example, you ought to track how many times users log into the system and the number of times they make failed login attempts. Also, you need to check their login locations.
If, for instance, you have a user in Korea, and you find someone made failed login attempts into their account from Colombia, then you can suspect an illegal activity.
9. Utilize Tracking Numbers for Every Order
To secure your website, it is desirable to track all orders customers make. This way, you will be in a better position to detect and foil fraud and identity theft.
The reason is that you will be better placed to know who bought which goods, their true identity, and their shipping location/address. Moreover, it will protect your business from fraudulent buyers who might receive their orders and lie they didn’t claim false refunds.
10. Back Up Your System and Database Regularly
You can secure your website by conducting regular database and system backups. This way, you will maintain copies of your data for future reference should technical challenges arise on your host’s servers. One easy way of doing this is by uploading your data to another hosting provider.
Final Thoughts
In these tough economic times when fraudsters are stalking e-commerce websites, online retailers have enough power at their disposal to defeat the bad boys in their own game.
For example, they can install an SSL certificate, conduct regular vulnerability tests, and track all orders to prevent identity theft and impersonating attempts.
Moreover, they can back up their system and database regularly, track user activities, use strong passwords, and choose their hosting companies carefully. With these easy tricks at your fingertips and in action, you too can beat the fraudsters and safeguard your e-commerce website.