The rate of cybercrime is skyrocketing and is projected to cost businesses an average of $6 trillion annually by 2021. As online businesses and e-commerce boom, cybercriminals have decided to piggyback and use this as an entry point to the systems of businesses. Protecting your online store should, therefore, be a priority. If your business becomes a victim of cybercrime, you risk suffering a financial loss that could lead to the closure of your business and the running of your brand’s reputation.
Here are the ways you can protect your online store from fraud and scammers.
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Use a reputable e-commerce platform
Ecommerce platforms like Magento are trustworthy and have the necessary security features. What makes such a SaaS platform a better option to build your online store on is that it has people taking care of it: that is, from building it to ensuring that it is secure.
A reputable platform is vigilant about the security of the users and will continuously release updated security features. For instance, the recent Magento 2 reCaptcha extension protects your online store from break-ins both at the back-end and front-end.
By using a platform that is invested in your security, your e-commerce business will be protected from data theft, abusive comments, creation of fake accounts, and scammers.
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Keep your site updated
Software updates contain patches that fix security holes. Note that hackers are always on the lookout for security holes in popular software. Your e-commerce platform and extensions could be used as entry points.
They use web crawlers to identify sites that have unpatched extensions. You should stop ignoring software updates notifications linked to your online store, or any other software that you use on your computer. This is one of the smartest security moves that you can make to keep your platform safe.
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Do not store sensitive customer data on your website
Sensitive customer data like credit card details and other information should not be stored on your e-commerce platform. Despite the security measures that you may have put in place, your site may still be compromised. If such data lands in the wrong hands, you might lose the trust of your customers, and they may not want to transact with you again. In some cases, you may even end up being sued and suffer severe financial distress. The use of tokenization technology can also help you prevent credit card fraud.
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Use HTTPS
Moving your e-commerce platform to https could be a great move to protect your business from fraud. To do this, you should first acquire an SSL certificate from a reliable vendor, install it, and change your settings. HTTPS will encrypt all the data that moves between the browsers and the servers. This enhances privacy and ensures that all your financial information is protected throughout your transactions.
Ecommerce has become a very profitable area of business. However, it faces the constant threat of data breaches by hackers. Employ the strategies discussed to protect your online store.
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Interesting related article: “What is cybersecurity?“