Being the owner of an Ecommerce website is a challenging business. You don't only have to deal with inventory, orders and clients, you will have to deal with technology, advertising and various ways of marketing and before all security. You have to give your customers a sense of security. They need to know that their credit card or checks information will be protected, that all their personal data stored in your website will be secure and you are taking all the needed precautions in consideration for this to happen.
Having an online store that is available 24/7 can open the doors to online criminals looking to make a profit wherever they can, and they will not stop until they find what your vulnerable areas are and have stolen your clients information and anything else they can get their hands into.
What can you do to give your clients and sense of security, while at the same time avoid online pirates targeting your ecommerce website?
There are some simple steps you can do to ensure your customers you are doing everything in your power to protect their information and we number some of them here.
Communication Encryption
Data encryption is key not to only prevent cyber attracts but also to give your clients a visual prove of your security efforts. It is important that all the data in and out of the site is encrypted. This can be done by installing a SSL certificate on your site. A SSL certificate is created by your hosting company and signed by an authoritative agent like geotrust.com, verisign.com, or any other company allowed to do this for you.
Once your SSL authentication is working you can be assures that through the SSL certificate no one can read the important data except the intended recipient.
Use strong passwords and recommend your clients to do the same.
Using strong passwords will make it very difficult for cyber attackers to get away with your or your clients account information. You can implement this on your customers too, by creating or adding password policies to your website that they will be forced to use strong password. A strong password should be a combination of symbols, numbers and letters.
Choose an strong web hosting
One of the most overlook aspects of ecommerce online security is hosting. Not every company follows all the recommended patches and security updates that are available online pretty much every day. It is a daunting task but it has to be done in order to keep up with security. Make a little research online about the companies you decided to use and make sure there is no bad reviews about them. We at Web Designer Express provide hosting only to our clients and we know all it takes to keep it up with todays online market.
Choose the right online security software
Today there's a few things the company creating your ecommerce have to take into consideration, and you should know them too so you can request them. Here are a few common items you should be aware of if your system is capable off.
CAPTCHA: This is a program or system intended to distinguish human from machine input, typically as a way of thwarting spam and automated extraction of data from websites.
Spam Honeypot: is a computer security mechanism set to detect, deflect, or, in some other manner counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems.
Backups: Make sure your site can be backed up in a regular manner and that you can download those backups to store then in multiple places.
File Permissions: Make sure the permissions on your files and folders are set correctly as a per file matter.
Conclusion
So here it is; a quick list of thins to take in consideration for your online ecommerce website, many of which should be applied by the developers creating it but many times it doesn't happen that way. And that is why you should be aware of them and able to check and ask for those extra features in order to have ensure your ecommerce is safe and reliable. For us at Web Designer Express security is always one of our main concerns. We will always advice you about security concerns and work on implementing the techniques and software needed for your ecommerce website to be secure, reliable and most importantly effective. Contact us today and ask for how we apply security online. We can cover all of it, we have 20 years in business and 0 websites hacked. That is the WDE difference.
