The eCommerce industry is rapidly growing. People are setting up eCommerce businesses all around the globe. It is one of the most profitable sectors right now. Thus, its growth is justifiable. However, this growth is attracting a lot of attention, and not all of it is positive.
Cybercriminals are always waiting for the opportunity to strike at these eCommerce businesses. And when they get their shot, they manage to steal a lot of money along with sensitive data from these platforms and their users. Thus, it is crucial to ensure the security of these eCommerce platforms and prevent attackers from ruining these businesses.
If you are someone who is starting or already running an eCommerce business, here are a few security risks and concerns that you should be aware of.
Customer Data Theft
eCommerce platforms have thousands of daily users. Each user has their own account and with it, their personal information. From their names and contact numbers to their home address and credit card information, these accounts contain a lot of sensitive information.
And in the event of a data breach, the security of all this information is compromised. That results in a breach of the user’s data privacy, which can further make your eCommerce business lose its face value. Besides, cybercriminals can also steal your customers’ credit or debit card information and misuse them without anyone’s knowledge.
Thus, running an eCommerce business requires the seller to maintain specific standards. These standards and practices help protect user data. You might want to use a third-party platform to conduct your eCommerce business if you cannot provide such security on your own. That is one of the reasons many eCommerce sellers prefer using Amazon’s FBA program.
There are many pros and cons of an Amazon FBA. One of the more interesting benefits of this program is its security, which is maintained by Amazon itself. Hence, certain information, like your buyer’s address or contact info, will always be protected by the finest cybersecurity technology that Amazon has to offer.
DDoS Attack
The main aim of a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is to cripple entire systems. These are bots that flood your platform or website with a large volume of traffic. Such a sudden and unexpected wave of traffic will overload the servers. And as a result of not being able to deal with it, your servers will crash, which in turn will crash your platform.
DDoS attacks are very notorious. They may not look deadly at first, but these attacks have the capabilities to take down large websites and online platforms. In the past, they have been used to cripple government as well as military websites. Hence, they can crash your eCommerce platform too.
Detecting the threat early on is the most effective way to stop a DDoS attack. You can also install anti-DDoS software modules to prevent them from infiltrating your servers. Besides, your domain itself should have certain levels of protection running at all times to stop these attacks.
Spam
The product pages on eCommerce platforms allow buyers to comment or post reviews of those particular products. Usually, these comment or review sections contain useful information regarding the product and its quality. However, there are times when these sections are filled with spam texts and links. These spam messages or comments are mostly delivered through automated bots.
The bots will target specific tags or your entire website. Sometimes, they tend to overload the product pages with these spam comments to crash the page or probably the entire platform.
Spam will also affect your SEO rankings. Google is very careful about spam content on websites. And they will immediately downgrade your platform if they find a large volume of spam comments or messages throughout the website. Hence, it is necessary to deal with this issue properly.
Most domains or CMS platforms offer their users spam protection. In addition to that, you should also consider using different plugins or tools to automatically detect spam messages. You can also stop bots from entering the platform. Doing so will not only prevent spam generation but will also stop other security threats like DDoS attacks.
That is all regarding the three most common security risks for eCommerce platforms. While there are a lot of other threats popping up every other day, you should first worry about these three and then think about dealing with the rest. Whatever be the risk, you can always prevent cyberattacks by maintaining proper security standards across your platform.
