How to Protect E-commerce Business with New Cyber Threat
Did you know that over 450,000 new malware are released every single day? It would help if you protected your e-commerce business from such malicious programs. Cybercriminals use these for all sorts of nefarious purposes like financial crime, espionage, data theft, and the list goes on. Their goal is to introduce one of these dirty programs into a network conspicuously and to take control of it. The result is almost always the same — a business with a compromised IT infrastructure.
The times we live in demand for a broader cybersecurity plan, one that can combat various types of threats and protect your e-commerce business more efficiently. Unfortunately, that is no longer as simple as using a single tool and forgetting all about it. Instead, it would be best to use a combination of tools and techniques to beat the various types of cyberattacks being launched. Let us now discuss some of the most common security threats and how you can protect your e-commerce website from them.
- Enforce Comprehensive Encryption
Using an SSL/TLS certificate can solve many problems for any website. Still, when it comes to e-commerce sites, there’s an unspoken rule — get a wildcard SSL certificate as E-commerce websites need to secure multiple subdomains like login, payments, cart, etc., which lie under the main domain. Therefore, it is essential to encrypt server-client communication for all of them. A wildcard SSL certificate can encrypt the in-transit communications on many level-one subdomains under the selected primary domain.
This cannot be done with a single-domain SSL certificate, which can only encrypt a single domain or subdomain. So, installing a wildcard SSL is recommended and while you are looking for one, consider a cheap yet premium SSL like the Positive SSL wildcard certificate from a reputed brand. The key advantage of getting such an SSL is that it comes with a warranty against mis-issuance, protecting your customers if the worst happens.
- Keep Scammers at Bay
Financial frauds are on the rise, and whether you are an established e-commerce business or one that is on its way to fame and success, you need to safeguard and protect your identity. Else, scammers would easily impersonate your website to launch phishing attacks and, in the course of it, ruin your online reputation and create legal problems for you.
You can counter this by using the right SSL certificate but with the Organization or Extension validation, which confirms your business’s existence and continuity. This third-party validation lets your customers distinguish between your e-commerce site and those impersonated or cloned by cybercriminals.
- Beware of Supply Chain Attacks
For the smooth functioning of an e-commerce business, it is important to have strategic partnerships with other businesses like shipping and logistics, suppliers, vendors, affiliates, etc. In digital times, this requires third-party integrations, and that creates all the mess. Those having access to your eCommerce website’s critical infrastructure must therefore connect to it from a secure system.
So, lay down minimum security standards and compel your suppliers, vendors, and contractors to comply with them. This is necessary because, in 2021, there has been a four-fold increase in supply chain attacks, and 62% of them are engineered using malware. So, enforcing simple security measures like using a web application firewall to block out malware can reduce the risk of this attack by 62%.
- Protect your Infrastructure from Ransomware
Ransomware attacks have increased by leaps and bounds and are now one of the most dreaded forms of cyberattacks. It involves introducing malware into an IT ecosystem and using it to encrypt all the connected devices such as personal computers, mobile devices, servers, etc. After that, a decryption key is offered in exchange for a ransom. In 2018, the average ransom demand was $5000, but in 2021, that increased to $200,000 and is something you need to watch out for.
You can protect your systems from ransomware attacks by creating a strong first line of defense using a powerful firewall and threat monitoring tool. Nevertheless, there is always the possibility of a security lapse. To avert that, you need Plan B. So, backing up your data and storing it onto a system not connected to your enterprise’s core IT infrastructure is highly recommended. Data backups are now one of the most preferred disaster recovery measures for businesses worldwide.
- Unleash the Power of MFA
Recently, Microsoft made the bold claim that implementing multi-factor authentication can reduce password theft by 99.9%, and we agree with it. This type of authentication is secure as it involves using a memory-based, time-sensitive, or biometric authenticator. Furthermore, since two or more different types of authenticators are combined, the chances of a hacker gaining access are reduced to a minimum. So, if you don’t use the MFA, maybe it’s time to implement this tool in your e-commerce websites and applications.
- Use CAPTCHAs
You can protect your e-commerce business from malicious bots and brute force attacks by using a CAPTCHA tool like the reCAPTCHA from Google. This is now a security essential that businesses must implement without fail.
- Keep the Payment Gateway Secure
E-commerce websites cannot operate without online payments, which is why hackers are after these sites. The best way to protect them is by using a third-party payment gateway like PayPal, which cascades the payment data-related security risk onto the intermediary. However, always remember to encrypt the ‘payments’ subdomain with an active SSL/TLS certificate.
Final Takeaway
Due to the increase in e-commerce activities, cybercriminals are more determined than ever to steal financial data and wreak havoc. They now use highly sophisticated tools and use offshore servers to engineer attacks and cover their tracks. So, e-commerce business owners must be extremely cautious and implement broader security measures. We have discussed some of the most rampant cyberattack forms in the virtual world and ways to counter them. Those are time-tested techniques that can easily thwart multiple threats and facilitate a secure and functional IT ecosystem.
