Tips For How Ecommerce Companies Can Protect Consumer Data

Introduction

Ecommerce websites facilitate millions of online credit card/debit card transactions daily. Millions of people across the globe trust these websites with their confidential information.

However, banks advise their users to avoid using the auto-fill option on websites as that lets web browsers store vital card numbers.

But most users trust chrome autofill and feel safe in compromising on their data security.

So, when customers trust you with their data, ecommerce website security becomes essential.

Hackers are always on the lookout for opportunities to decrypt user information and cause substantial damage by selling it to the dark market.

To help you protect your customer data, we are going over eight easy tips that can take your website security to the next level.

Eight easy tips to enhance your website security and protect your customer data

1. Have a secure ecommerce platform

While building an ecommerce platform, owners look for features like extensive design, swift speed, no lapse in website structure, and so on.

But they mostly forget to emphasize the security part of the website. However, getting a good website structure is equally important, but user data will always be vulnerable to theft if it is not secure.

To protect user data and build customer trust, an ecommerce website should have an SSL certificate installed.

An SSL certificate not only keeps the user data safe by encrypting the data and sends it over a secure network but also keeps hackers at bay.

2. Build a secure checkout page

Checkout pages are one of the most integral pages of websites.

Many customers make up their minds to buy a product but eventually decide against it out of suspiciousness because of a lousy checkout page.

Factors like page design, load speed, recognized brands, and contact information are a make or break factor when it comes to a checkout page.

Also, the presence of the cheapest wildcard SSL certificate is essential for ecommerce website security.

So, make sure that your checkout page has all these attributes.

3. Avoid storing sensitive information.

You do not need to store hordes of vital information to suffice your database.

Email ID and passwords are enough for you as an ecommerce store to deal with your customer.

Storing excessive information is a double-edged sword. If it can help you analyze your customers, keeping them on your database can also allow hackers to sweep it all off.

And, it is going to get much worse moving further. Customers might sue you in court cases, and you may even end up losing your business.

4. Encourage your customers to use strong passwords.

You must ask your customers to maintain good password hygiene for their benefit.

The safety of your customers starts with them only. You must tell them to use both letters and alphabets, make different combinations, and avoid using the same passwords everywhere.

People have a knack for using the same password everywhere, which is a bad habit to get into. It leaves them vulnerable to data thefts and makes them easy targets for hackers.

5. Train your employees regarding security

Employee training for cybersecurity is critical for your ecommerce website security. Employees should know how to tackle an attack from a hacker and neutralize them.  

To train employees, you can give them on the job training to make them understand the traits of cyberspace.

When every employee in the organization understands the cybersecurity’s ins and outs, hackers will not get any chance to creep in and do the damage.

You can arrange live-fire training drills for employees to put them in a fake situation and ask them to protect the website from an artificial threat.

6. Have a DDoS service

A distribution denial of service is a service that is provided against attackers who try to overwhelm a user’s system and inject malware in the process to hack information.

A DDoS service will protect your website and your user’s information against network layers that are bound to cause substantial damage to both your and the user’s system.

Session hijacks, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting attacks are major attacks that DDoS security protects against.

7. Invest in a website monitoring tool

Website monitoring tools analyze how healthy your website is. It has various parameters on which it weighs whether or not a website is fit enough to carry its services or not.

By installing a website monitoring tool, you can create your website dashboard where you can check your website’s health, how secure your website is and what all things you need to do to give it a robust structure.

A monitoring tool is not a very costly affair, and one can easily afford it. In our recommendation, every business website must have a monitoring tool to measure its performance.

8. Update your security patches regularly.

If you do not want your ecommerce website security ever to get compromised, always keep track of your software update.

Security patches keep on upgrading according to the changes in the IT framework. Hackers are continuously evolving, too, which is why constant website upgradation is a must.

New code breaks get invented to harm the websites and compromise cybersecurity, so CMS software like WordPress keeps updating itself to new and more secure versions.

If your website software is out of date, you are prone to get compromised.

To Conclude

If you want to keep your customer data and integrity protected, you must have a secure Ecommerce platform.

A secure checkout page is a must to maintain customer trust. Do not stock up on customer information for future use as it may end up in the wrong hands.

Encourage your customers to use strong and different passwords so that you themselves can protect their data before anything.

Train your employees and equip them with the knowledge of cyberspace that is essential for your ecommerce website security.

Get DDoS security and a website monitoring tool to make your website a guarded, unbreachable fortress.

And, in the end, keep your security patches updated and stay protected.

Infographic created by Donnelley Financial Solutions, a digital contract software company