13 Security Measures For Online Business
At Least 39% of businesses globally are prone to cybersecurity risks. eCommerce businesses and businesses with an online presence are bound to face this risk more than other companies. Thus, you should seek the appropriate and latest security measures for online business to protect it.
The most costly cybersecurity risk is a data breach. 3.92 million U.S. dollars was the total loss to global businesses from data breaches in 2019. Enterprises face multiple other risks, and there are numerous measures you can use to curb them.
Security Risks eCommerce Businesses Face
Any online store is prone to the following risks:
- Financial fraud: Financial fraud has been present since the start of eCommerce businesses. It takes various forms which include:
- Unauthorized transactions
- Fake refunds or returns for illegally obtained goods.
- Phishing: Phishing is a form of a data breach. Hackers will masquerade as your business using a fake copy of your website and reach out to your client. They especially reach out using emails. The hackers nudge customers to take action and gain personal data, such as login information. Phishing will only work if customers take action.
- Spam: Spam affects the speed and security of your website. Spammers reach out to businesses or individuals via malicious links sent to email, website comments, and social media inbox.
- Trojan horse: Trojan horses are one of the worst security risks. You may download a program that turns out to be a trojan horse. The trojan horse will access and wipe out the information on your website.
- Bots: Some bots like the SEO bots are good. However, hackers also use some bots to get and change pricing information on your eCommerce store. They also use them to gather your best selling products in carts to decrease your sales.
- DDoS attacks: DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of service. Such an attack will overwhelm your system with numerous requests and cause it to crash.
- SQL injections: SQL injections are another form of a data breach. They use malicious code to target your query forms, collect the available data, and delete it later.
- Brute force attacks: Brute force attacks target your admin panel. It establishes connections to your website and hacks your password through every available combination.
- XSS: Hackers will use a malign code to hack your website.
Security Measures for Online Business.
The following measures will help you to overcome the various security threats to your online business:
1. Use Firewalls
Firewalls regulate the traffic to and from your website and restrict untrusted networks. They are selective, and only trusted traffic can enter your site. Firewalls protect your eCommerce store from firewall injections.
2. Switch to HTTPS
Websites moved from the use of HTTP protocols to HTTPS protocols. HTTP is unsafe as they make your online business vulnerable to attacks. If you use HTTP protocols, some modern browsers will warn customers against proceeding to your site, and others will block the user from accessing your website.
Furthermore, Google uses these protocols as a ranking factor. Sites with HTTPS protocols will rank higher. However, you will need to acquire an SSL certificate from the hosting firm before you get HTTPS protocols.
3. Backup Your Data
Cyber attacks and hardware malfunction often cause data loss. The data loss could put your organization and customers in jeopardy. Thus you should manually backup the data or by yourself.
To be safer, you should also create a copy of the backup. Alternatively, you could get an eCommerce web hosting service to automate your data backup.
4. Antimalware and Antivirus software
An antimalware software will help your online business like online food business to detect issues like credit card fraud and other malicious transactions. They use sophisticated algorithms that give a fraud risk score to sales to determine the legitimacy of transactions.
5. Ecommerce Security Plugins
Security plugins help you handle risks such as XSS, SQL, code injections, and numerous other attacks. You can even prevent malicious requests from getting to your website. For example, in the case of online communication, IP telephony has protocols for various functions including security.
6. SSL Certificates for Websites
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. They are files whose purpose is to link a key to various transactions on a network. SSL certificates work with regular queries, sales, and credit card details.
They encrypt and secure data you send to various destinations. Furthermore, they will secure every business you do on your platform. Moreover, a certificate of ownership is part of SSL certificates. A guarantee of ownership ensures you are safe from phishing.
7. Payment Gateway Security
It is very risky to store credit card information on your website. You can quickly put your customers at financial risk, and your business can declare bankruptcy as a result of fines. Thus, you need to employ payment gateway security measures such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard accreditation. (PCI DSS).
Alternatively, you can use third-party payment gateways such as Skrill, Stripe, PayPal, Wordplay.
8. Secure Your Admin Panels and Servers
You will get secure passwords once you get started on most eCommerce platforms. You need to secure your business by changing these passwords often and using complex ones. Moreover, you can have the platform notify you whenever there is an attempted login from an unknown IP.
9. Use Multi-Layer Security
Multiple layers of authorization help to fortify the security of your website. You can use CDN protection of two-step verification.
CDN stands for Content Delivery Networks, and it helps to protect your website from DDoS attacks. On the other hand, two-factor authentication helps to uses logins and extra code to secure your accounts. You will receive the additional code on SMS or email.
10. Train Your Staff
Your staff needs to know the laws and policies regarding the protection of customer information. You can use various measures for your firm. For example, you need to review and restrict the staff that has access to sensitive user information.
In case an employee resigns, you need to change the login details they had or delete them.
11. Educate Your Clients
Your online business is not the only security loophole. The users may make you prone to hackers as well. For instance, they could have weak passwords that are easy to hack, or a phishing site could get information.
Thus, you must educate your customers. Teach about phishing and other security threats. Moreover, you can emphasize that they use strong passwords to secure their accounts. Strong passwords have a combination of numbers, characters, and symbols.
12. Always Update Your Systems.
This is one of the basic security measures for online business. Updates are necessary because hackers try to breach the previous security updates. New updates of antivirus and other security software and patches are required. Furthermore, hacker bots can identify outdated systems and pry on them.
13. Be Vigilant About Malicious Activity.
You can avoid a lot of trouble and revenue loss if you exercise vigilance. There is software available to help you stay vigilant. The individual monitoring software will notify you of real-time threats and transactions. Furthermore, the software can help you prevent financial fraud, among other risks.
Conclusion
Online presence is helping businesses in every sector. Moreover, it helps with various aspects, such as communication, automation of operations, payments, information, and more. Thus, you must access the risks that your online presence or business faces and learn the necessary measures to mitigate them.
Some of the security measures for online business require professional help, and the rest require responsibility from the business and its customers.
