The Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Security

The most common eCommerce security threats are:

• Financial Fraud
  

  eCommerce / payment / financial fraud is when any kind of
  deception is conducted during a transaction for financial or personal gain.

  • Credit card frauds typically committed using a stolen credit cards.
  • Unauthorized transactions through account takeover, cybercriminals make
    unauthorized purchases.
  • Fake return & refund requests that involve various scams, including the
    intention to return stolen merchandise for cash, initiate a return without returning
    an item, or to lying to a credit card to dispute a valid transaction (chargeback
    fraud)
• Social Engineering
  

  A broad term that involves the use of some sort of deception or
  manipulation to get people to take an action (eg click a link in an email or on a blog
  comment) or to divulge confidential information. Targets include consumers themselves
  (often pretending to be your brand) or employees, with the aim to gain access to
  systems.

• Phishing
  

  Phishing attacks are designed to trick users into giving away
  sensitive information (usually credentials) or to inadvertently download a virus or
  malware designed to infiltrate systems or steal data. Such attacks most often come by
  email, but can also come as text messages or even phone calls.

• DDoS Attacks
  

  These Dedicated Denial of Service (DDos) attacks send high
  volumes of traffic that can make an eCommerce website slow and difficult to use.
  Attackers use these attacks to damage reputation or for financial gain (blackmail).

• Brute Force Attacks
  

  The Brute Force Attack is an automated attack that uses
  trial-and-error to guess possible passwords or passphrases to gain access, typically
  targeting admin panels, but sometimes also targeting consumer accounts.

• SQL Injections
  

  SQL injection is a code injection technique that inserts code
  into the SQL database to steal or wipe data from the database.

• Cross-Site Scripting
  (XSS)

  Threat actors inject malicious scripts into the browser code and
  run at the client side to scrape user data.

• E-Skimming
  

  Inserting skimming code on eCommerce payment card processing
  pages to capture financial and personal information.

• Malware
  

  Malware is designed to attack a website to steal data or send
  spam from your domain or to provide for lateral activity to other areas of your data.

  • Trojan Horse is a kind of malware that misleads users and is downloaded to a
    computer disguising as a legitimate piece of software.
  • Ransomware Ransomware is a kind of malware designed to steal and/or encrypt and lock
    down data for the purposes of extortion.

How to Secure Your eCommerce Website

The first step in protecting your eCommerce site is to recognize that its
needs are different from a standard website. eCommerce websites contain more valuable data,
including inventory, pricing, supply chain data, or sensitive user information (username and
passwords, contact details, financial information) that cybercriminals can exploit for
fraudulent transactions or sell on the black market.

• Choose a Secure eCommerce
  Platform

  Leading eCommerce
  platform providers have proven capabilities to support a variety of industries
  and Ecommerce
  business models, with the proven ability to support performance, scalability – and security. Here are some of the leading secure eCommerce platforms:

  Magento

  Trusted by over 250,000 active brands, and powering 12% of all eCommerce sites, Magento is a powerful PHP eCommerce platform – and the current Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce.

  WooCommerce

  WooCommerce sits as the second most popular eCommerce platform,
  with a market share of 23.43%, operating as a free plugin built for
  WordPress and designed to support small to large merchants who have some technical
  knowledge.

  Shopify

  As a leader in simplicity and user-friendly set-up, Shopify has
  become a leader in the eCommerce
  marketplace, with a wide range of tools and plugs to support customization.

  BigCommerce

  For large, fast-growing businesses, BigCommerce has become a
  platform of choice, with omnichannel
  strategy and cross-channel selling and strong inventory management tools.

  Squarespace

  The leading eCommerce provider in 2021 with a market share of 23.51%, Squarespace is known for its ability to
  support creative designs, with modern templates for a more modern shopping aesthetic.

• Switch to HTTPS
  

  Most consumers now know the importance of https:// vs http:// and
  know that a site with the padlock and the “s” for security is a genuine business that
  has taken security seriously.

  An HTTPS website has received a security certificate that vouches
  for the security of that website, protecting sensitive information on that connection
  against eavesdroppers using the SSL/TLS protocols for encryption and
  authentication.

• Choose a Secure eCommerce
  Host

  Many eCommerce platforms will offer hosting for customers with
  off-site solutions such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, but there
  are also specialized web hosts that bundle eCommerce functionalities into their services
  such as shopping cart software, payment processing, automated backups, caching, email
  services, or data support. Look for a hosting provider that has:

  • SSL certificates
  • DDoS protection
  • Domain name privacy
  • PCI Compliance
  • Firewalls
  • Spam filters
  • Virus & malware detection and removal
  • Encryption
  • Automated backup
  • Access controls that include SSH and strong authentication
  • Strong customer support
  • Network monitoring (and how customers are notified of potential threats)
  • Physical security protections for servers (e.g. security cameras, gated access)
• Secure your Admin Area
  

  Administrators have a privileged level of access to secure areas
  such as the database or to controls on the eCommerce
  website itself. To protect these sensitive servers and admin panels, consider:

  • Changing the default admin area
  • Change the default administrator username and password
  • Assign credentials by individual (not shared)
  • Restricting access to the admin area (Permitting access to known IP addresses)
  • Notify administrator on failed login attempts from unknown IP addresses
  • Use strong authentication practices (difficult passwords, two-factor or multi-factor
    authentication)
• Automate Data Backup
  

  To protect against any kind of disruption, not just security, it is important to never lose customers or purchase information. Backups are the most obvious solution, but eCommerce websites cannot rely on web hosts to do this. The options are either manual – a time consuming process – or an automated backup solution that ideally runs the backup process on a different server (to eliminate performance disruption) and backs up any new changes in real-time.

• Secure Payment
  Gateways

  A payment gateway is a secure service to process credit card or
  direct payments.When choosing a payment
  gateway , make sure that it is:

  • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DDS) compliant – a standard that covers basic
    security precautions for the storage and processing of credit card and cardholder
    information. This is a requirement for all eCommerce websites.
  • Secured with SSL to encrypt information (see HTTPS section above)
  • Leverages tokenization to store data away and assign it a key (in addition to
    any other encryption or hashing that may protect the data)
  • International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification – another
    security standard that indicates the organization has conducted audits and proven
    compliance to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of customer information (see
    ISO
    27001)
• Data Collection
  Practices

  Although it is tempting to collect as much information as you can
  about your customers to inform future marketing efforts, many privacy regulations now
  are clear that data must be limited to only what is needed. Further, these same
  regulations now include stipulations that consumers have a right to know what data is
  being collected, to see that data, and to request it be removed (“the right to be
  forgotten”).

• Strong Authentication and
  Access Controls

  Authentication (the process of verifying a user is who they say they are) is important for every user of the organization – but particularly for those with access to privileged information or systems. In larger organizations, it is also important to clearly specify the level of privilege – that each account only has access to the systems, software or records needed for that job, and no more.

  Given the inherent vulnerability of passwords, 2-factor
  authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) involve more than one step in
  authenticating a user is who they say they are. Both 2FA and MFA involve some
  combination of something a user knows (e.g. password), something a user has (e.g.
  one-time passcode), or something a user is (e.g. biometric data). For larger
  organizations, access control solutions such as IAM and PAM can help address security
  concerns.

• Enforce Strong Passwords for
  Customers

  Strong password hygiene is the first step in improving access to
  your eCommerce website, which we can achieve by mandating complex passwords. However,
  passwords continue to remain a weak method of authentication that the threats we
  mentioned above can easily exploit. Hence, it is recommended to implement 2FA or MFA for
  consumers as well as internal employees.

• Implement Website Hardening
  Measures

  To reduce brute-force attacks against the site, whether on
  consumer logins or for employee logins, it is important to limit login attempts. This
  option may be available in the eCommerce platform, via a plugin, or as a third-party
  solution.

• Create Security Policies
  & Procedures

  Security best practices always involve a combination of
  technology alongside improved policies and processes. These policies apply to everyone
  at work on the eCommerce site, from the customer service desk to the IT desk. This
  includes:

  • Clearly articulated policy on safe practices such as what to do if you suspect
    fraud, data handling processes (i.e. never copying or sending data, even to
    yourself), not sharing passwords, patching
  • Have a clear privacy policy for consumer information
  • Staff training, provided on an ongoing basis, on topics such as phishing attacks,
    password hygiene, compliance
  • Regularly review third-party plugins and solutions in your store to ensure they are
    being updated by the partner and that they are patched to the latest version. Remove
    unused plugins.
• Have Multi-Layered
  Security

  To mirror the policies and procedures, eCommerce owners must utilize several different technological barriers to improve security. Multi-layered security is the concept of creating a defense in depth – that if one layer fails, another will still be there. The multi-layer concept also ensures defense against many kinds of channels of attack, including email and phishing.

  • Web Application Firewall
    A protective barrier between the Internet and the eCommerce website
  • Content Delivery Network
    A content delivery network (CDN) helps ensure fast delivery of the website through
    caching, but can also provide DDoS mitigation, improvements to security
    certificates, and other security features.
  • Geolocation Anti-Fraud Software
    Geolocation data can help combat the more sophisticated attacks on eCommerce,
    finding irregularities in the IP address or origin of the data and helping to verify
    cardholder details against transactions to flag for fraud.
  • Threat detection & monitoring software
    These tools help detect and assess vulnerabilities to eCommerce websites, networks
    and databases and provide ongoing monitoring of website activity and logins. There
    are many kinds of third-party monitoring tools available including analysis of disk
    space, CPU usage, response time, change detection, service uptime, responsiveness,
    broken links, as well as tools that can perform vulnerability assessments and
    penetration testing.
• Keep Your system patched &
  updated

  Regularly updating systems and applications that we use in the
  eCommerce site is probably the most important step to maintain security (as well as
  performance!). These updates contain patches to known security vulnerabilities. In fact,
  57% of cyberattack victims report the breaches could have been
  prevented with an available patch.

Your Trusted eCommerce Services Partner

In the present environment when regulations are continuously evolving and
new security threats are emerging, it’s essential to take necessary measures to safeguard your
Ecommerce website. You may feel that you can handle the security of your ecommerce website on
your own or offload these responsibilities to your platform provider, it’s not going to be easy.
Hence, it’s best to have a reliable ecommerce services partner by your side.

If you are looking for someone to help you in auditing your eCommerce website for security, or building a new eCommerce store – our experts can you help provide a strategy to create a robust, scalable, and secure site to sell your products and services.

Frequently Asked Questions

1.
What is an eCommerce Security Badge?

A trust badge helps to demonstrate that a website is legitimate and uses
vetted third-party service providers. Although the “Guaranteed Safe Checkout” badge denotes that
an SSL is used during checkout, some eCommerce websites also add money back guarantee and other
service-related badges.

2.
How do I know if my website is secure?

Although the eCommerce security best practices offer great insight into
how to become secure, the first step is getting a baseline. There are scanning tools available
(e.g. FreeScan and other great options) that provide an overview of current security posture,
although these are often very surface level recommendations. If you don’t know where to begin, a
security audit by a trusted partner is a great first step.