Effective Ways to Secure your E-commerce Website|StoreHippo

To build an online store is easy these days. To keep your site secure, however, is a whole different story. As an online retailer, we suppose you are familiar with the common security breaches (or at least have an inkling of what they are) and how these if neglected, could easily mean the end of your business.

So, what are these security breaches you need to protect your online store from? Let’s see how many of these you can identify-

Password breaches- are a combination of brute force attacks used to gain access to insecure passwords on your ecommerce website.
DDoS (Distributed Denial of service) attacks- when a website is overwhelmed with requests, resulting in blocking other users from the site.
Ransomware- when a hacker gains control of your website and locks it from use. In order to gain control again, you need to either pay the ransom money or let the data be destroyed.
Malware- includes all types of viruses, such as worms and Trojans.
Phishing- where official-looking email or phone calls are made so as to gain access to crucial information.

These security issues will always be a challenge when you build an online store. However, certain preventive measures taken in advance can easily save your store from these tricksters. The key here is to know what exactly to look out for.

Signs your ecommerce site is hacked
Dealing with different types of security breaches
Conclusion:

We understand these are too many signs to keep track of. But as we discussed earlier, if you take certain preventive measures right from the time you build an online store, you can easily keep your ecommerce store and your customers protected.

So what are these ways that ensure secure shopping on your ecommerce store? Let’s find out.

Dealing with different types of security breaches

Dealing with these different types of security breaches requires strong oversight, control and management from your end. Moreover, it requires a combination of principles, solutions, and attitudes from your ecommerce platform provider.

StoreHippo is one such store builder that helps entrepreneurs such as yours build a secure ecosystem for their ecommerce website. We follow up the latest security measures to deal with the most common security threats (such as the ones mentioned above).

So, without wasting any further time, let’s get familiar with some of the ways you can secure the shopping experience for your customers. Also, we will see why choosing StoreHippo can be a better alternative for your online store.

1. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Do I really need this security certificate? Do I need to fasten my seatbelt while driving? Do I need protective eyewear while looking at the solar eclipse?

The answer to all these questions is a big ‘YES’. Whether you believe it or not, SSL is an important security protocol which must be employed on all ecommerce stores so as to secure them against hackers looking to intercept sensitive information.

With the ever-increasing and advanced security threats being launched each day, one can no longer consider Secure Sockets Layers certificate as a luxury, rather it's a necessity. Let’s look at some of its benefits.

It helps protects your confidential data.
It affirms your identity.
It even assists in search engine rankings
It helps you satisfy PCI/DSS requirements
It improves your customer trust

How StoreHippo helps?

You get free SSL for your online store.
You won’t have to go through the verification stage with StoreHippo which is a standard procedure for acquiring this certification.
StoreHippo issues the security certificate within minutes
With StoreHippo, you won’t have to worry about reissuing it ever since it already comes with an auto-renewal option.
All the StoreHippo’s themes are fully compatible with HTTPS standards.

Now wouldn’t that be nice to have an ecommerce platform that comes pre-equipped with this security feature, so you won’t have to deal with it later on?

2. Authentication & Authorization

There is some content or resources available for public consumption that doesn’t require any type of identification or authentication. Unfortunately, your ecommerce website isn’t one of them. As an entrepreneur holding your customers' crucial data, you are expected to protect your resources with additional security steps. Hence, authentication and authorization.

Here, the first step of access control is authentication because let’s be honest, you simply cannot validate the subject identity reliably and securely by yourself, can you?

If not, then how can you expect to make appropriate decisions regarding what they can and can’t do. Got my point? Think of authentication as a crucial precursor to authorization.

Let’s understand this through an example. You can visit an ecommerce website and learn about its various offerings. But to avail any of these offerings, you need to authenticate yourself as an existing customer, or register to become a new customer.

Once authenticated to the website, the authorization policies kick in so as to determine what offerings are available for you to access. Seems easy, right? The fact is, using the modern authentication and authorization processes, one can easily find out a lot more about a subject than just who they are.

For example, while building an online store you can always squeeze in an additional layer of security by using two-factor authentication. It requires a standard username and password combination along with an extra code sent through an email or an SMS to the provided phone number.

Authentication and authorization are the two layers of the added security which can really fortify your online store.

How StoreHippo helps?

StoreHippo offers a 2-step authentication namely Captcha and User verification to allow only genuine users to the site.
This process greatly reduces the probability of someone impersonating a user to gain access to any sensitive resources on your ecommerce website.
With Storehippo’s authentication and authorization process in place, your employees can securely access the desired data without putting sensitive information at risk.
Lastly, it can easily remedy the time-consuming and costly password-reset calls by providing a secure way for users to reset their own password.

3. Secure Payment Gateways

We all know how payment allows you to offer more payment options to your customers which in turn, helps encourage more sales. That’s why it is highly critical to ensure your online store has all the security solutions when you build an online store so as to protect online shoppers. So what security features are we talking here? Let’s take a look.

Point to point encryption

The moment your customers swipes, dips or taps their card, they become susceptible to fraud. That’s why secure payment gateways use P2PE to keep hackers away from intercepting payment data.

P2PE is currently one of the best ways to protect customer transactions. It ensures less risk of loss of cardholders data or brand reputation in a data breach, of fines for compliance failures, and of lost revenue of fraud.

Tokenization

Tokenization (similar to SSL) is a one-time code associated with the transaction where it substitutes an actual credit card number with a randomly generated string of characters. Relax, this one-time code cannot be traced back to the cardholder since the generated numbers are meaningless to anyone trying to read without the decryption key.

So, choosing a payment gateway that offers tokenization makes it impossible for hackers to decode these numbers into real values, thereby reducing the risk of payment fraud through the use of stolen data.

Moreover, your customers' data is never saved on your ecommerce website. It means you aren’t holding any payment information in your system, so there’s nothing for hackers to steal.

PCI DSS Compliance

PCI DSS which stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is guidance established by leading credit card brands in 2006 to help online businesses such as yours provide secure payment solutions to your customers. Some of its requirements include-

Use only validated payment software.
Never store any sensitive customers’ data anywhere.
Use a firewall on your network.
Encrypt transmission of data across open, public networks.
Train your employees about security when you build an online store.

How StoreHippo helps?

StoreHippo offers multiple secure payment gateways thus making it easier for your customers to choose from.
We offer end-to-end encryption for all the payments made through our StoreHippo platform.
We comply with PCI DSS standards to uphold security provisions for your ecommerce website.
Lastly, you can offer full support for both offline and manual payments using our platform.

4. Data Encryption

What started as simple code used over a telegraph in World War 1, is now a sophisticated coded algorithm that allows data to be safely stored and transferred. This coded algorithm or data encryption transforms plain text or data into cipher text that cannot be read by anyone other than the sender and receiver.

We at Storehippo use one way encryption for our ecommerce platforms which is a process of scrambling plaintext to produce a unique message. It gets even better with its properly designed algorithm since there is no way to reverse the process in order to reveal the original password. So, unless the hacker is very good at guessing passwords, you are safe.

While building an online store, any sensitive data that is stored on your computer, laptop, or removable storage media is prone to security theft. By encrypting the data, even if you are working from home or away from the office, you can easily access sensitive information securely.

Your electronic device got stolen? No worries, all of your data will still be safe.

Data encryption is one of the most preferred ways to protect your site using the standard SSL/TSL protocols. Besides this, it also helps secure any other online communications your company has. It includes employee and client information, product descriptions and business outline as well.

How StoreHippo helps?

StoreHippo offers strong one-way encryption to help protect data and sensitive information.
Our encryption technology can also protect data across multiple devices, whether being stored or during transfer.
StoreHippo ensures anonymity and privacy as well, thereby reducing opportunities for misconduct by hackers.
StoreHippo meets the strict compliance requirements of the PCI (Payment Card Industry) to ensure the protection of cardholder data.

5. Secure servers

Lastly, your ecommerce website needs secure hosting. This is a crucial step as many website owners underestimate the importance of the decision to make regarding which web hosting service to use to support their websites.

We understand many of you are tempted to go with the cheapest option, there are several key factors to consider in a hosting service that goes way beyond the price. Primary among them is the security factor.

Get a secure platform that helps keep hackers away from your site. And, in case any security breach occurs when you build an online store, make sure it has proper backup systems in place to get your site up and running in no time.

A secure web host is one that provides-

A secure data centre
High uptime guarantee
RAID data protection
Sufficient backup programs and
Manual reboot

Check if your current hosting provider provides all of these details. If not, it’s time to move on to a more secure ecommerce platform that takes care of hosting as well.

How Storehippo helps?

StoreHippo uses Microsoft Azure which is Microsoft’s very own cloud computing platform to help secure its servers.
Any security threats on your ecommerce website can easily be remedied with the help of in-built Azure security assessments or proprietary assessments.
Azure not only acts as a secure cloud network but also as an added layer of security to help keep your data safe.

Conclusion:

In order to secure online transactions, you need to implement innovative solutions that help you keep up with cyber risk besides offering better payment experiences. Making sure you’re working with a secure ecommerce platform is a major step on the journey to smooth payments.

At StoreHippo, we use state-of-the-art technology while building an online store to offer a safe and secure ecosystem, one that suits all your needs and requirements, and help flourish your ecommerce store.

So, ready to create a secure online store? Start your 14 days free trial of StoreHippo.