Security threats are causing havoc in online trading. The industry experiences up to 32.4% of all successful threats annually. Hackers usually target e-commerce store admins, users, and employees using a myriad of malicious techniques. Are you experiencing credit card frauds, scamming, phishing, bad bots, DDoS attacks, or any other security threat?
It is undeniable fact that the e-commerce security threats are causing havoc in online transactions. The industry experiences up to 32.4% of all successful threats annually. Hackers usually target e-commerce store admins, users, and employees using a myriad of malicious techniques.
There are just so many e-commerce frauds that are plaguing the industry currently. In this blog post, we have tried to list down the common threats your e-commerce face and how to prevent them. You may have already been subjected to credit card frauds, scamming, phishing, bad bots, DDoS attacks, or any other cyber attack and know how valuable it is to get instant notifications against malicious threats.
1. Financial Fraud
Ever since the first online businesses entered the world of the internet, financial fraudsters have been giving e-commerce businesses a real headache. There are various kinds of financial frauds prevalent in the e-commerce industry, but we are going to discuss the two most common of them.
Credit Card Fraud - It happens when a cybercriminal uses stolen credit card data to buy products on your e-commerce store. Usually, in such cases, the shipping and billing addresses vary. You can detect and curb such activities on your store by installing an AVS – Address Verification System. Another form of credit card fraud is when the fraudster steals your personal details and identity to enable them to get a new credit card.
Fake Return & Refund Fraud - The bad players perform unauthorised transactions and clear the trail, causing businesses great losses. Some hackers also engage in refund frauds, where they file fake requests for returns.
2. Phishing
Several e-commerce shops have received reports of their customers receiving messages or emails from hackers masquerading to be the legitimate store owners. Such fraudsters present fake copies of your website pages or another reputable website to trick the users into believing them.
As an example, see the image below from our Phishing Simulator. A seemingly harmless and authentic email from PayPal asking to provide details:
3. Spamming
Some threat actors can send infected links via email or social media inboxes. They can also leave these links in their comments or messages on blog posts and contact forms. Once you click on such links, they will direct you to their spam websites, where you may end up being a victim.
Mass-mailed malware infection can quickly morph into a much more serious problem
Apart from lowering your website security, spamming also reduces its speed and severely affects performance.
4. DoS & DDoS Attacks
Many e-commerce websites have incurred losses due to disruptions in their website and overall sales because of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. What happens is that your servers receive a deluge of requests from many untraceable IP addresses causing it to crash and making unavailable to your store visitors.
5. Malware
Hackers may design a malicious software and install on your IT and computer systems without your knowledge. These malicious programs include spyware, viruses, trojan, and ransomware.
The systems of your customers, admins, and other users might have Trojan Horses downloaded on them. These programs can easily swipe any sensitive data that might be present on the infected systems and may also infect your website.
6. Exploitation of Known Vulnerabilities
Attackers are on the lookout for certain vulnerabilities that might be existing in your e-commerce store. Often an e-commerce store is vulnerable to SQL injection (SQLi) and Cross-site Scripting (XSS). Let’s take a quick look at these vulnerabilities:
SQL Injection - It is a malicious technique where a hacker attacks your query submission forms to be able to access your backend database. They corrupt your database with an infectious code, collect data, and later wipe out the trail.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) - The attackers can plant a malicious JavaScript snippet on your e-commerce store to target your online visitors and customers. Such codes can access your customers’ cookies and compute. You can implement the Content Security Policy (CSP) to prevent such attacks.
The Content Security Policy (CSP) is an added layer of security that helps to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks, including Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and data injection attacks. These attacks are used for everything from data theft, to site defacement, to malware distribution.
7. Bots
Some attackers develop special bots that can scrape your website to get information about inventory and prices. Such hackers, usually your competitors, can then use the data to lower or modify the prices in their websites in an attempt to lower your sales and revenue.
8. Brute force
The online environment also has players who can use brute force to attack your unsecured administration panel and attempt to crack your password. These fraudulent programs connect to your website and try out thousands of combinations in an attempt to obtain your site’s passwords. Always ensure to use strong, complex passwords that are hard to guess. Additionally, always change your passwords frequently.
9. Man in The Middle (MITM)
A threat actor may listen in on the communication taking place between your e-commerce store and a user. If the user is connected to a vulnerable Wi-Fi or network, such attackers can take advantage of that.
10. E-Skimming
E-skimming involves infecting a website’s checkout pages with malicious software. The intention is to steal the clients’ personal and payment details.
Are you an e-commerce business owner?
If yes, then don’t downplay the seriousness of these e-commerce security threats.E-commerce security solutions that can ease your life
1. HTTPS and SSL certificates
HTTPS protocols not only keep your users’ sensitive data secure but also boost your website rankings on Google search page. They do so by securing data transfer between the servers and the users’ devices. Therefore, they prevent any interception.
Do you know that some browsers will block visitors’ access to your website if such protocols are not in place? You should also have an updated SSL certificate from your host.
2. Anti-Malware / Anti-Virus Solutions
An Anti-Malware is a software program that detects, removes, and prevents infectious software (malware) from infecting the computer and IT systems. Since malware is the umbrella term for all kinds of infections including worms, viruses, Trojans, etc getting an efficient Anti-Malware would do the trick.
On the other hand, Anti-Virus is a software that was meant to keep viruses at bay. Although a lot of Anti-virus software evolved to prevent infection from other malware as well. Securing your PC and other complementary systems with an Anti-Virus keeps a check on these infections.
3. Securing the Admin Panel and Server
Always use complex passwords that are difficult to figure out, and make it a habit of changing them frequently. It is also good to restrict user access and define user roles. Every user should perform only up to their roles on the admin panel. Furthermore, make the panel to send you notifications whenever a foreign IP tries to access it.
4. Securing the Payment Gateway
Avoid storing the credit card information of your clients on your database. Instead, let a third party such as PayPal and Stripe handle the payment transactions away from your website. This ensures better safety for your customers’ personal and financial data. Did you know storing credit card data is also a requirement for getting PCI-DSS Compliant?
5. Deploying an Effective Firewall
Effective firewalls keep away fishy networks, XSS, SQL injection, and other cyber-attacks that are always hitting the headlines. Firewalls will also support to regulate legitimate traffic to and from your online store, to ensure passage of only trusted traffic.
6. Educating Your Staff and Clients
Ensure your employees and customers get the latest knowledge concerning handling user data and how to engage with your website securely. This training should be conducted upon an annual basis and also be monitored by the organisation to ensure that all employees are adhering to the training provided.
7. Additional security implementations
Always scan your websites and other online resources for malware.
Back up your data. The majority of e-commerce stores also use multi-layer security to boost their data protection.
Ensure that passwords are rotated frequently.
Have a incident response plan created and practiced.
Update your systems to the newest versions frequently and employ regular updates of e-commerce security plugins.
Lastly, get a dedicated security platform that is secure from frequent cyber-attacks.
Employ a threat management solution to monitor your servers (web and corporate) and company endpoints.
Forint Solutions to E-commerce Security Threats
Forint can provide you with the following suite of cyber security solutions that enable e-commerce businesses to enjoy uninterrupted business:
24/7 Threat Monitoring and Cyber Shield Services - Our range of services within our Cyber Shield solution will conduct Internal Security and Network Assessments, Cloud Assessments, Vulnerability Scanning and our flagship product the 24/7 Monitoring Solution, which will provide your network with a SOC2 compliant level of monitoring of corporate devices - https://www.forint.co.uk/cyber-shield.
Dark Web Scanning - Stolen user credentials (emails and passwords) found on the Dark Web can indicate that your company or a 3rd party application or website that your employees use has been compromised, so you can take immediate action. Cybercriminals traffic and buy stolen credentials so they can infiltrate your networks to steal your data. By monitoring the Dark Web for threat intelligence about stolen user data associated with your company’s domains, you can be alerted when a compromise is detected, then respond to stop a potentially costly and widespread data breach - https://www.forint.co.uk/dark-web-monitoring.
Phishing Simulations and Training - With our managed phishing simulation campaigns we can help educate your business to identify phishing emails which will help strengthen the weakest link in your cyber security protection. A simple dashboard will allow you to keep track of campaigns and how your users are reacting to the emails. Contact us today to discuss your cyber security concerns and how our dark web monitoring and training tools can help - https://www.forint.co.uk/phishing
Incident Response Preparedness - We examine how organisations are preparing for an incident, in order to stay relevant against the latest attack vectors. We then strategise using smart tools and resources in order to provide a suite of solutions that can assist the organisation in the event of an incident - https://www.forint.co.uk/dfir.
Digital Forensics Services - Providing defence lawyers and corporate organisations with valuable information gained from the analysis of internal IT and seized mobile computing assets, either to support a criminal proceeding, supporting civil litigation proceedings, post an organisational breach and/or internal incident - https://www.forint.co.uk/dfir.
Conclusion
Cyber-security is very important if you are to succeed online and threat actors are getting better at their games, which means you need a dedicated team that will stay updated with security issues and provides around-the-clock protection to your websites. As an e-commerce or small business owner, that is not always possible.
Therefore, the team at Forint can effectively and efficiently deploy a set of security solutions to ensure that your e-commerce site remains secure. You can access the dashboard for easy monitoring of the security progress and status of your websites.
Forint provides e-commerce stores with a ubiquitous security threat solutions