Have you gone camping? You have to pack even for a one night pack meticulously. Miss one thing, and you will be left helpless in the middle of the wilderness.

The same goes with eCommerce. Every Ecommerce Store owner should have a kit of security tools or essentials to save themselves from the wilderness, that is the steady torrent of cyber security attacks.

This topic will discuss that in detail. A list of eCommerce security essentials and how to pick the right one.

1. Firewall

A firewall is like a checkpoint that regulates what goes in and out of the website server. It keeps malicious programs away from entering the network and ensures that genuine users are still able to access information seamlessly. Firewalls usually come in the form of a turnkey software. You can buy and configure it in your server. There are hardware and software versions as well as hybrid firewalls.

Look for these things to pick the right kind of firewall for your eCommerce store:

• A trusted and proven platform with positive reviews
• Compatibility with the OS used in your server systems
• Customer support and availability of technicians to install
• Scalability and network capacity (10/100/1000Mbps as the case may be)
• Content filtering abilities

2. DDoS Protection

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a serious cyber security threat that can hit the revenue of an eCommerce store directly. In DDoS, hackers attempt to flood the network of the website with heavy incoming traffic originated from bots. The server unable to process the heavy traffic crashes leaving the eCommerce store defunct for long.

In the eCommerce business, where even milliseconds of page loading delay can lead to cart abandonment, hour long of malfunctioning is definitely fatal for future growth. Hence, eCommerce store owners must gear themselves with DDoS protection systems that trace and prevent bots from crashing the website using DDoS.

3. SSL Certificate

An Ssl Certificate is basically a bite-sized file that is used to encrypt the flow of information from the web server to the user’s browser and back. It creates a safe passage for data packets to be transferred. During the transfer, the data is encrypted into a scattered form which cannot be interpreted by a third party. An encryption at the other end will decrypt the message and deliver the message to the user. This encryption ensures data integrity, confidentiality, and originality. You can get an SSL Certificate from the authorized SSL certificate providers.

Do all eCommerce stores need SSL certificate?

Not necessarily. If your online store is redirecting the customer to an external payment gateway managed by a third party, then an SSL certificate is worth to use. The SSL certificate will show that the website is actually the one owned and managed by the website owner with whom the user is transacting the business.

Benefits of having an SSL certificate:

• Boosts SEO ranking
• Inspires confidence in customers
• Skews more conversions
• Adheres with PCI compliance
• Provides trust badges/seal for display in payment/checkout pages

4. Plugins and extensions

If your eCommerce store is built on a CMS platform like Magento, WordPress, Joomla, etc., then there are third party security plugins available in the market which take care of security matters. These plugins do everything from security assessment, malware scanning, vulnerabilities reporting, auto-scheduling of backups and much more.

They are like standalone software which can be bought off the rack and integrated into your website. Most security plugins come with their own dashboard from where the website owner can preview and monitor security metrics.

How to know if a security plugin is worth buying?

• Authentic publisher reputed for web security products
• High reviews, mostly positive from users
• Provides round the clock support and disaster recovery.
• A trial or demo mode is available to check compatibility with your website and its platform

5. Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a common security feature for ensuring that only the account holders are able to access the logins. The two-factor authentication works by sending an additional password, code or a one time password to the user’s mobile handset.

It ensures that the account cannot be opened only with password alone but also with an additional layer of the security code which is dynamically created and sent to the user. For eCommerce store owners, the two-factor authentication can be used to access the admin panel, where most of the controls and settings to the website is hoarded. It can also be used to secure access to the customer database, credit card numbers, chargebacks and similar information that require maximum security.

6. Automatic backup

Regular backup ensures that the store can be put back on its foot as quickly as possible in the case of a security breach or system crash. However, not all eCommerce store owners are tech-savvy. Also, not everybody are proactive enough to schedule and take backups to keep their data backups up-to-date. Hence, the need for plugins or extensions that can take regular automatic backups and ensure that data is available for restoration

Winding it up

Every eCommerce store owner must have in his arsenal security essentials that will protect the website as well as customer information from cyber security attacks. What we discussed above is a possible roundup of the essentials that one cannot miss to have. Equip your eCommerce store with these security features and stay safe from cyber criminals.

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