Why is Cybersecurity Crucial for Any Ecommerce Website?

Online shopping has become the most common activity in the world. E-commerce sales will grow by 6.5 trillion US dollars in 2023 [1]. With the rise in B2B and B2C communication channels, it is essential to have an intricate understanding of the operation and implementation of security protocols. The cost of ignoring such measures is far too high.

Customers are becoming increasingly skeptical when it comes to giving out their information online. And for a valid reason. In 2019, over 100 million consumers became victims of a cyberattack, when a single engineer broke into Capital One’s server.

Hackers invade every 39 seconds, which amounts to 2,244 times per day.

These are three types of data that they are looking for:

• Customer Sensitive Data
• Company Financial Info
• Usernames and Passwords

It is safe to follow only compliance standards to secure your e-commerce website. However, the addition of several security protocols will make your website impenetrable.

Hackers are constantly on the lookout for loopholes in online systems. As soon as they find one, it is a matter of seconds before they can take control of your platform and start pumping data.

Updating your e-commerce software regularly will protect you from any loopholes.

An SSL Certificate ensures your domain is secured with cryptographic protection. Any type of data communicated can be read, only by the recipient. It uses this secure connection to transfer data from the sender to the recipient. Each piece of information is broken down into smaller parts. Each chunk of data is authenticated and enciphered before transmitting it to its destination.

The question is which SSL you would go with? For instance, to secure unlimited subdomains, you will need to acquire a cheap Wildcard SSL Certificate to ensure protection for all your subdomains. Wildcard SSL will help fight against security fraud on e-commerce platforms.

Picking a well-known payment gateway provider will protect your website, as these providers have unique configurations that allow for the complete privacy of sensitive information. PayPal is one of the most secure providers and it is used in more than 200 countries.

SSL Certificate in combination with a secure payment gateway provides for maximum encryption of all sensitive data. It authenticates both channels and uses asymmetric encryption to protect you from any data theft.

Asymmetric cryptography uses a single key split into two smaller keys: a public key and a private key. So if the information is transmitted between two channels, both would have a private key and corresponding public key. To unlock the data, the receiver would need to have a private key and should know the private key and the public key combination.

Note: Make sure once you installed a valid SSL certificate on your website, you need to ensure that you are using proper redirection in .htacess otherwise your website would open from multiple URLs i.e. www.example.com, example.com, https://www.example.com, make sure you use 1 version of your domain and all other versions would automatically be redirected to the chosen one. You can read some htaccess tutorials to get some basic details or tell the same issue to your SSL management team, they will fix it for you.

A Distributed Denial of Service attack uses multiple traffic points to block users’ access to a specific channel. For example, in 2019, Cyber terrorists hit Telegram in an attempt to restrict protesters from relaying messages between each other.

If you would own a physical location, it would be as if a group of people is standing at the entrance and not letting you pass through.

Here is a map of all the DDoS traffic flooding as of April 17th, 2020:

The frequency of DDoS attacks will reach 17 million by 2020. The host is vulnerable when it comes to these intrusions because traffic floods from multiple locations.

Some solutions are available for those who would like to prevent this from happening.

Outsource DDoS protection to cloud-based services. This will present you with many benefits:

• A cloud network has more resources to help fight against any cyberattack than a private network.
• Cloud-based software can remove the threat before it reaches its target.
• Such service provides employees that are always on the lookout for the latest cyber-attack strategies.
• The network capacity of more than 300Gbps can handle any type of cyberattack
• An outsourced mitigation plan will not affect the users’ involvement

All in all, a DDoS-as-a-Service will enable you to have both cloud-based and in-house protection 24/7. You will receive a customized plan of defense according to your e-commerce model.

23.2 million hacked accounts used “123456” as their password, according to the National Cyber Security Centre breach report, released in 2019.  The most basic and yet crucial step to protecting yourself from an attack is to use a password that is near impossible to guess.

Hackers use various types of software designed to go through several combinations of code at once to find your password sequence. However, if you use a strong password that follows all the recommended guidelines, you will prevent this from happening.

Here’s how you can create unbreakable passwords, according to Symantec Corporation:

• Never use any information in the password that can be found online (e.g tel number, addresses, birthdays, names, and so on).
• Check the yearly password reports produced by NCSC to avoid using similar combinations.
• The more characters/symbols your password has, the more difficult it is to break.
• Two Factor Authentication (2FA) will prevent the hacker from breaking in, even if he knows your password.
• You should use password managers to help with creating complex password combinations and storing them in an encrypted space.

Finally, Cyber-attack destruction costs are predicted to reach $6 trillion by 2021. Avoiding standard security protocols will put your store at the risk of data theft, DDoS attacks, and malware contamination. Taking every step to protect yourself will create a safe e-commerce website for you and your consumers.