Cybercriminals and hackers target users, employees, and admins of e-commerce stores by using different types of complex and malicious techniques. E-commerce security threats have been causing havoc in online shopping or online transactions for quite some time.

Do you know that the e-commerce industry experiences approximately 32.4 percent successful cybersecurity attacks every single year? This is why it is crucial for e-commerce business owners to understand the top e-commerce security threats of 2021 clearly.

Top Ecommerce Security Threats Of 2021

Ecommerce security can be described as the set of guidelines, which ensure safe and secure transactions through the web or internet. In other words, e-commerce security contains protocols or techniques that will safeguard individuals engaging in online buying and selling of goods and services.

There are indeed plenty of e-commerce frauds, which are currently plaguing the industry. This blog post has compiled some of the most common and top e-commerce security threats of 2021.

Phishing

Phishing is one of the most common e-commerce security threats. Cyber Criminals pose as legitimate businesses during phishing attacks and then send emails to your customers. They trick your customers into revealing sensitive or private information by making them believe that the request is coming from your company.

Financial Frauds

It is safe to say that financial fraud has been a significant concern for e-commerce and online businesses for several years. This is because cybercriminals attempt to make unauthorized online transactions, resulting in substantial losses to the target business.

Some cyber attackers might even file requests for fake returns or refunds. Refund fraud is one of the common types of financial fraud, where companies refund damaged goods or illegally acquired products.

 

DDoS Attacks

Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service attacks focuses on disrupting your business website, which will, in turn, affect your company’s overall sales. These types of attacks work by flooding the business server by initiating numerous requests.

SQL Injections

SQL injections can be defined as a type of cyberattack that focuses on accessing a business’s database by targeting their query submission forms. Cyber attackers usually inject malicious code into a business database, collect sensitive data, and delete them later during an SQL injections attack.

Trojan Horses

Several online shoppers, internet users, and business website admins would have probably downloaded Trojan Horses on their devices already. Trojan horses are one of the worst network security threats, where cybercriminals delete sensitive and confidential data from business computers with ease.

E-Commerce Security Solutions

E-commerce businesses should never ignore security concerns and issues if they want to succeed and gain customer trust. Therefore, E-commerce security should always be a top priority for online businesses. Here are a few essential e-commerce security measures that will help your business to stay away from cyberattacks.

Payment Gateway Security

Storing credit card details on your business database is a liability. It will serve as an open invitation for cybercriminals and hackers to launch an attack on your business. In addition, you should ensure that your payment gateway security is not at any risk.

It would be best to consider using third-party online payment processing systems to carry out online transactions off-site. Some of the popular e-commerce payment processing options available out there are Stripe, Paypal, and Wordplay.

Secure Your Website with SSL Certificates

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates will help businesses encrypt sensitive information shared across the web. SSL certificates will guarantee that the sensitive data or information will reach just the intended person.

Therefore, companies should surely buy SSL certificates. Acquiring cybersecurity products is an investment in a safer cybersphere existence and should not be viewed as something that can be overlooked.

SSL certificates will not cost you a fortune. You will be easily able to find a cheap SSL certificate that suits your requirements without any hassles. The inexpensive ones proffer the same level of encryption as the more expensive ones.

Choosing the right kind of SSL certificate provider is as important as looking into the price constraints.

Ecommerce owners that seek to expand in the future and have multiple first-level subdomains such as payment, blog, product pages under the main domain should go for a Wildcard SSL certificate. With this single certificate installed on your website, you have the liberty to secure multiple first-level subdomains under the chosen primary domain.

Ensure The Usage of Strong Passwords

Businesses need to understand that their weakest link can be their clients or customers in some cases. If the details of a customer get compromised, then hackers will use that information to commit widespread fraud. This is why businesses should ensure that their customers are using solid and hard-to-crack passwords.

 

Apart from that, businesses should make sure that their employees use strong passwords and change them regularly. This will help companies to avoid the chances of their internal systems getting compromised.

Use Firewalls

Businesses using effective e-commerce plugins and software systems will be able to bar unreliable or untrusted networks. In addition to that, companies will better regulate the outflow and inflow of website traffic.

 

An effective firewall will help businesses prevent SQL injection, Spam, CSRF, XSF, and several other types of attacks. In addition, such a firewall will ensure that the traffic that accesses your e-commerce website or store consists of genuine users.

Backup Your Data

Most e-commerce businesses will know that data loss due to cyberattacks or hardware malfunction is not uncommon. Unfortunately, this means that companies that are not regularly backing up data are at a higher risk of losing all sensitive and confidential business data.

 

Employing an automatic backup service is an excellent idea, as data backups will happen regularly even if you forget to do so. However, you should also consider creating a backup data copy to have a contingency plan if you lose the original data backup.

Educate Staff and Clients

Your employees and staff should have a clear understanding of the policies and laws about protecting user data. You should advise both staff and customers not to share their login details or any other sensitive information.

Wrapping Up

Being aware of the top security threats in e-commerce is essential for all online businesses to protect themselves from cyberattacks. In addition, companies must also learn how they can prepare for such attacks, which is where the security measures mentioned above will come in handy.