10 Helpful Tips to Enhance Information Security for Ecommerce Businesses

By Andi Croft

With all that goes on when starting a business, it’s easy for owners to overlook how important it is to thoroughly ensure that their tech systems are safe from cyber security attacks. Security breaches massively hit the ecommerce industry, and losses due to online payment fraud were approximately around 20 billion U.S. dollars.

Suppose you have an online business that requires your customers to share sensitive data and financial transactions. In that case, you must properly verify identities and documentation within the compliance rules of your industry.

Doing so prevents fraud and data breaches that could cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars. That’s why we’re putting together a guide to what you can do to enhance data protection and information security.

1. Require ID verification

Automated ID verification systems can confirm identities, enhance customer conversion rates, comply with regulations, and detect fraud.

You can automatically verify government IDs in real-time, detecting any digital manipulations on the ID images and content. Ensure that the ID verification system you choose meets compliance standards, keeps customer conversions in mind, and simplifies the new customer onboarding process.

2. Comply with PCI-DSS

PCI-DSS compliance is a necessity for sites that do online money transactions. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) serves as a secure environment for companies that uses credit cards for their transactions.

In fact, it’s a universally accepted standard for ecommerce security since it establishes your site as the one that’s safe to do money transactions.

3. Encrypt Your Whole Store

The old approach for ecommerce encryption was to utilize SSL encryption for the checkout experience. Changes have already been made to have better site security, and a recent update from Chrome makes browsing more secure for users.

Users will be given a security warning on the site or page that collects customer data, such as a form and pages that aren’t encrypted. Shopify, for instance, uses SSL site-wide on every one of its customer sites and every page within.

4. Enable two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a security feature requiring users to enter their login data with another piece of data, such as a code sent to their phones.

Enabling two-factor authentication will protect your customers’ information and prevent it from being stolen or compromised.

Furthermore, as a business, you should implement a two-factor authentication for all your sensitive accounts, that includes accounts that may store the data of your customers.

You can protect your business from theft and unauthorized access when you require your customers to enter a code and their login information to their phones.

Moreover, two-factor authentication helps prevent fraud because authorized users are the ones who can access customer data.

5. Switch to HTTPS Protocols

HTTPS can protect sensitive data that was entered on your site. When using HTTP protocols, keep them updated so that other browsers wouldn’t tag your site as insecure.

Moreover, secure HTTPS hosting requires an SSL certificate to keep your site secure. Google penalizes HTTP in search rankings. On the other hand, HTTPS sends a positive trust signal to shoppers, especially digitally savvy ones.

6. Use solid-rock Firewalls

You can also get effective ecommerce software and plug-ins to prevent untrusted networks. You can also use it to regulate the inflow and ouflow of traffic on your site. At the same time, it should give selective permeability, only allowing trusted traffic to go through.

Using rock-solid firewalls ensures that the only traffic that could access your ecommerce store comes from real users.

7. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A CDN or content delivery network is a network of distributed servers routing users’ requests to the servers closest to them.

It’s a fantastic solution if you’re an ecommerce business that runs its operations globally. Moreover, ecommerce sites get high traffic and handle requests from different locations. If your site takes too long to load, you can lose customers.

A reliable CDN provider can help you avoid unexpected surges in site traffic and crashes on your server by efficiently distributing your site’s content and offering a quicker response.

Moreover, a CDN will enhance your page’s loading time using features like image resizing because you’re most likely to store many media files.

8. Use antivirus and anti-malware software

Hackers often use store credit card information to put orders anywhere in the world. Installing an antivirus and anti-fraud software helps you avoid this serious ecommerce issue.

This is because this software has advanced algorithms to flag malicious transactions so that you can take further action. They also give you a fraud risk score, so proprietors know whether a specific transaction is legitimate.

9. For data breaches, have a plan in place

Data breaches are inevitable, no matter how big or small your company is. In fact, over time, they can have a devastating impact on employees, customers, and even your company’s reputation.

To reduce the risk of a data breach, you need to have a solid place in place. Here are some helpful tips:

Work with an experienced data protection consultant to help you implement and create a data protection strategy.
Come up with strict policies and procedures on how customer information is handled.
Regularly conduct employee training on protecting customer information and complying with the company’s policies and procedures.
Constantly monitor your ecosystem for vulnerabilities.

In the same way, it helps that you constantly monitor your ecosystem to look out for any vulnerabilities. As an ecommerce company, you should be on the lookout for future cyber attacks, especially against customers’ data. When you monitor their systems, you can quickly identify and fix any vulnerabilities that could lead to irreparable damage.

Ensure you protect your customer’s information with solid security measures. While regular monitoring helps detect these attacks, more is needed to protect customer data from being stolen or accessed.

As such, you need to take additional steps to ensure that you’re protecting customer information. This includes having strong passwords and encrypting your most sensitive data.

10. Run regular security audits

Finally, you should conduct regular security audits to protect your customers’ information.

This usually includes looking for vulnerabilities and ensuring your systems are correctly configured and protected.

Over to You

Investing in your site’s security has never been necessary. Every day, the number of security breaches and threats has significantly increased. Thus, the need for using stricter security measures such as access control, two-factor authentication, and SSL certificates has been indispensable.

With so many cyber threats, implementing these security measures will help you have a fresh start in getting complete ecommerce security. Good luck!

Andi Croft is a freelance writer interested in topics related to business, technology, and travel. She has a passion for meeting people from all walks of life and bringing along the latest tech to enhance her adventures.