Here is our last tip in honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, though these practices should last all year long! Tip #30: Invest in B2B e-commerce security.
Forecasters has estimated that global e-commerce will hit $34 trillion by 2024. And cyber criminals are quickly trying to find a way to steal a slice of that.
It’s not just the dollars hackers are after. They also want to get credit card numbers and other sensitive client data.
Steps you can take
While your website has strong security, the devices consumers are using, plus risky Wi-Fi networks, often don’t. As a result, 60% of all fraudulent transactions come from a mobile device.
Here are some security controls to explore for e-commerce sites:
1. Use risk-based transaction monitoring solutions: Security information and event monitoring (SIEM) and incident management (ATIM) systems and services scan huge volumes of data in real-time to collect evidence of possible security breaches. Integrated SIEM and ATIM systems can also deploy multistage tactics to respond to potential threats, such as adding an additional review of suspicious activity or locking accounts.
2. Use CAPTCHAs: Bad bots designed to look like real human users account for one-fifth of all e-commerce traffic. Those bad bots are a threat in terms of credit card fraud, theft of logins and price scraping. The easiest way to block them is to use CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart).
3. Protect against DDoS attacks: Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks can knock your website offline when hackers flood your servers with requests from thousands of untraceable IP addresses. You can reduce the threat by minimizing the possible points of attack by using load balancers, firewalls, access control lists and content distribution networks.
4. Block brute force attacks: Hackers will target your e-commerce admin panel in an attempt to figure out your password. They’ll hit you repeatedly with programs that will try every combination of words and numbers to crack into your system. The solution is simple: Use a strong password and change it regularly.
5. Weigh risks with international sales: While e-commerce removes geographic barriers for many businesses, it can also increase your security risk. Experts say fraud on international channels is 2.5 times higher than domestic only.
6. Use HTTPS: If you’re still using outdated HTTP protocols, switch to HTTPS. In addition to lowering risk, many search engines will warn consumers your site is not safe if you don’t.
7. Don’t store credit card numbers: While it’s more convenient, storing credit card numbers in your database is a liability. If you do store numbers, use secure third-party payment processing systems.
8. Pick a secure e-commerce platform: Ensure you’re building your site on a secure e-commerce platform that provides updates and high-level security.