E-commerce Security: Importance, Threats, Best Security Practices

Quick Summary: E-commerce security remains a critical concern as online platforms face increasingly sophisticated security threats day after day. This blog demonstrates essential topics in detail, covering the importance of e-commerce security, security threats in e-commerce impacting businesses, and their potential consequences. You'll also learn about effective security measures to combat these challenges and build robust e-commerce security for your platform. Refer to this article to unlock exciting insights into the e-commerce industry.

The E-commerce industry has been relatively modernized! The processes of electronic commerce platforms are completely streamlined and automated, leaving no room for potential vulnerabilities. But, at the same time, security threats in e-commerce are surging!

Statista says 25% of customers hesitate to share their payment details, considering e-commerce security a core issue.

So, how do we deal with security issues in e-commerce without compromising the modern industry trends?

Here are the answers to all your queries! In this blog, we will acknowledge the importance of e-commerce security, address potential security threats, and follow unbeatable security measures to combat e-commerce security threats to the core.

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What is E-commerce Security?

E-commerce security is about the measures and practices put in place to safeguard electronic transactions that are conducted over the Internet. Implementing the latest e-commerce security best practices ensures that customers' data is fully protected, and transactions done online are secured. With secure e-commerce platforms, businesses and customers can trust that their data is safe, and their transactions are secure.

The Significance of Security in E-commerce

Learn why security is the pressing issue in the e-commerce industry and why we need to address security vulnerabilities in e-commerce on a prior note.

1. Trust and Confidence

Trust is the key! Secured e-commerce platforms are found relatively credible in customers' eyes as they are always concerned about the misuse of their sensitive information. Having reassured customers about their confidentiality builds the utmost trust and confidence among them.

2. Protection of Sensitive Data

According to Statista, Amazon is the largest e-commerce company globally, with a 1.34 trillion USD market capitalization. It's because security is the key reason behind their loyal customer base; they have never failed to keep customers' security a top priority!

Thus, integrating robust ecommerce cybersecurity measures ensures securing sensitive data such as credit card details, private information, and transaction history from unauthorized access and exploitation. This prevents identity theft, fraud, and financial losses.

3. Legal and Compliance Requirements

Gartner says, Legal and compliance department investment in tools for governance, risk, and compliance will shoot up by 50% by 2026.

Abiding by the latest security standards and regulations such as PCI DSS, GDPR not only ensures end-to-end data encryption in e-commerce but also ensures legal compliance. Not doing so, unfortunately, lets businesses experience legal liabilities, penalties, and it can adversely affect business' goodwill.

4. Prevention of Cyberattacks

According to Cisco, 73% of companies strongly believe a cybersecurity incident can bring havoc to their business in the next 12 to 24 months.

Web applications usually have 4.6% of critical vulnerabilities thus it is instrumental to enforce steadfast cybersecurity measures as e-commerce web applications are the core target of cyber attackers. The common attacks include phishing, hacking, and other malware attacks. Implementing defending security practices relative reduces the risk not only of cyberattacks, but financial losses, as well.

5. Financial Stability

Failing to consider security measures can lead you to bear overwhelming repercussions such as fines, legal fees, compensation costs, and other litigation expenses. Thus, it's fairly sensible to spend adequately on the e-commerce platform's security to keep such unexpected consequences at bay.

6. Competitive Advantage

As mentioned earlier, Amazon's secure and customer-oriented principles have led the organization to be listed among the top e-commerce companies worldwide. Thus, offering a safe and secure online shopping experience allows you to differentiate your business from your potential competitors.

Eight Common Security Threats in E-commerce You Must Know About

Let's learn about common security issues in e-commerce that are quite a disaster for the whole industry. Refer to them to learn how they can affect your e-commerce website's security.

1. Payment Card Fraud

In payment card fraud, misuse of debit or credit cards is done for doing unauthorized activities such as accessing card details or making purchases. Attackers often get card details by breaching data of e-commerce websites, by installing skimming devices on physical payment terminals or by phishing attacks.

It causes e-commerce platforms and both customers to bear huge financial losses; businesses' image reputation in the market deteriorates because of such negative instances.

2. Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks involve sending fraudulent emails and messages. Also, it involves building fake websites that can be mistaken as authenticated websites to dupe users. They are created to fetch users' confidential data such as usernames, passwords, or credit card details.

Successful phishing attacks can lead to unauthorized access to accounts, financial losses, identity theft, and compromised personal or business information.

3. Malware and Ransomware

Malware is malicious software that is designed to ruin computer operations, collect confidential data, or obtain unauthorized access to systems. Ransomware attackers encrypt crucial information on a victim's computer system and demand heavy excessive prices to decrypt the same.

Cybercrime Magazine says that ransomware damages are expected to reach $265 billion by 2031.

Such attacks can cause data loss, server error, financial extortion, system downtime, and, last but not least, compromised security.

4. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks involve overwhelming a website, network, or server with an unusually high amount of traffic from different sources. With such a flooded amount of traffic, e-commerce platforms become inaccessible to their legitimate users.

Successful DDoS attacks can cause temporary or prolonged downtime, massive loss of revenue, and substantial damage to e-commerce business goodwill.

5. SQL Injection

Attackers use SQL injection to exploit vulnerabilities in a website's software by injecting malicious SQL code into input fields. Attackers can misuse a website's SQL database to access and revise sensitive information.

With SQL injection attacks, attackers can obtain unauthorized access to customers' confidential details, they can get exposure of data like payment details and misuse them for potential data breaches.

6. Cross-site Scripting (XSS)

Attackers use cross-site scripting to inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users. These scripts are able to run within a user's browser environment, posing a risk of stealing cookies, session tokens, or other critical information.

Cross-site scripting attacks can compromise users' account details, enable unauthorized actions on behalf of users, and enable the theft of personal or financial data.

7. Man-in-the-middle (MitM) Attacks

MitM attacks intercept and possibly alter communications between users and e-commerce websites. Attackers positioned between users and websites are able to capture confidential data like login credentials, session tokens, or payment details.

MitM attacks can potentially promote aftermath like identity theft, financial losses, unauthorized transactions, and compromised trust between customers and the e-commerce platform.

8. Supply Chain Attacks

Supply chain attacks capture and target vulnerabilities in third-party services or vendors that are connected to the e-commerce platform. Through supply chain attacks, attackers can exploit data by inserting malicious code, compromise sensitive details of business or users through unauthorized access.

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Six Undisputable Security Measures to Beat E-commerce Security Threats

Refer to these six types of e-commerce security measures curated to beat sophisticated security issues in e-commerce.

1. Encryption

Implementing encryption scrambles data during transmission and storage to enable attackers or any other unauthorized source to perceive it and exploit it. Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) are well-known encryption methods for secured online communication.

This security practice helps you maintain a robust e-commerce security environment by safeguarding sensitive information such as payment details, login credentials, and personal data from attackers' interception during transmission.

2. Payment Security (PCI DSS)

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a security standard set which is created to protect card information during transactions and even making financial transactions. Compliance with PCI DSS helps you implement specific security measures and control for end-to-end security of payment card details.

With this security measure, you can be assertive about the security of your users' card details.

3. Phishing Awareness

Apart from implementing latest security measures, you must create awareness about fraudulent activities like phishing attacks and help understand your staff as well as users about common phishing tactics such as malicious phishing mails, websites, messages created to fetch confidential details.

4. Secure Coding Practices

By implementing secured coding practices, you can validate input data, use parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection, and sanitize user-generated content to prevent XSS attacks.

Secured coding practices decrease the likelihood of introducing vulnerabilities into the e-commerce website's codebase. They also make the entire security posture more robust and defensive against common web application security threats.

5. Use Secure Server Layer (SSL) Certificate

SSL certificates validate a website's identity and establish an encrypted connection. They safeguard sensitive transactions, protect users' credit card details, and prevent hackers from using your site for phishing attacks.

6. Update and Patch

Consistently updating e-commerce websites with the latest security patches and fixes ensures that vulnerabilities keep a safe distance from websites and apps. Not just that, security patches help businesses identify potential e-commerce vulnerabilities that attackers eagerly wait to exploit.

Thus, be sure to update your e-commerce platform regularly with the latest security patches and fixes.

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Leverage ZeroThreat for Robust Security

Managing an electronic commerce platform is worth the sweat and blood, especially if maintaining its security is the prime concern. Considering security threats in e-commerce, having foolproof security measures ready to be applied is a must for every online platform. We hope this blog successfully helped you with accurate insights about potential security threats and solutions to overcome the concerns of security issues in e-commerce.

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