E-commerce: Security threats you should keep your eyes on

Ecommerce Security Threats

The online market has taken the world by the storm, with a dramatic shift seen in the move from physical stores to the web in recent years. Technological advancements and the convenience of online stores have attracted the lion market share of buyers, fuelling an upward trajectory in the growth of online businesses, away from the traditional market. As a result, a lot of e-commerce websites have mushroomed in a bid to serve the online base. However, the existence of online stores is not without its perils.

E-commerce: Security threats you should keep your eyes on

The success of the online retail market has also attracted unscrupulous individuals and fraudsters since websites are highly susceptible to fraudulent transactions. Hence, cyber-terrorists have come up with sophisticated methods to take advantage of the loopholes in e-commerce websites for individual gain. Keeping up with significant risks that exist in your e-commerce site will ensure you are prepared to handle any threats that may emerge.

1. Ransomware. E-commerce sites store a lot of personal consumer data, such as credit card and bank account information, which can lead to identity theft and is prone to credit card fraud if they fall on the wrong hands. Hackers install a virus that locks you out of your website to get access to this data and encrypts it as a means to get you to exchange money for access. Depending on the extent of the data breach, it has the potential of crippling your business as consumers lose trust in your brand.
2. Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS). Ecommerce sites are particularly vulnerable to DDOS attacks, where your servers receive multiple requests from untraceable IP addresses. A DDOS attack is meant to disrupt your normal traffic; overwhelming your site with a flood of internet traffic. These requests can cause your site to crash altogether, which leads to loss of business.
3. eCommerce Malware. It is designed to target ecommerce websites linked to online payment data skimmer. Through this, credit card data and personal information is stolen. Hackers can also gain access to the database that supports the website through SQL injections.This can enable an attacker to bypass authentication controls and steal critical data on customers, products, suppliers; which can injure the reputation of your business.
4. Bots. There are both good and bad bots on the web. Hackers use bots that visit your e-commerce site to search for product information, such as inventory and prices, to lower theirs for more customers. Bad bots not only affect the customer experience on your e-commerce website but they also significantly reduce the performance of your website; which results in more downtime and loss of revenue from your online business.
5. Brute force.Cybercriminals also use brute-force password attacks to gain administrative access to steal consumers’ credit card numbers or distribute malware to e-commerce sites. The sophisticated software and programs used to crack the user passwords connect to your website and try out thousands of combinations in an attempt to obtain your password.
6. Phishing and spear-phishing. Phishing attack includes attackers sending malicious emails to trick your customers into clicking on malware links or disclosing their private information. Spear phishing has become an imminent threat to ecommerce especially because customers might be contacted via different emails such as fulfilment, support, delivery etc. This gives hackers a perfect opportunity to impersonate ecommerce stores to steal credit card information or receive payments.

Without implementing proper security measures on your e-commerce site, you are at the risk of losing both your customers’ data and revenue. From using strong passwords on your e-commerce sites to installing SSL certificates, there’s a lot you can do to mitigate these ecommerce security threats.

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