As ecommerce has displayed exponential growth over the past year, unfortunately so has online fraud. Recent data predicts an 18 percent increase in cybercrime over the course of 2021, according to the latest research from Juniper Research.
The security of your shoppers should be retailers’ biggest priority. Putting customers’ details at risk of fraud and identity theft can irreparably damage a brand, so be sure to use your time wisely to ensure you have the procedures in place to keep shoppers safe. To help small businesses achieve this, Fasthosts have revealed their top five tips for keeping customers secure on your website:
1. Stop stockpiling personal data
The most straightforward way to improve your site’s cyber security is by regularly purging old data. This means establishing a procedure that deletes customers’ personal and payment details immediately after a transaction has been processed. By erasing information when it is no longer needed, brands are immediately minimizing the chance of a breach.
2. Make high-strength passwords your priority
No matter how sophisticated your on-site security measures are, a hacker can almost always decipher a weak password. To get around this, the best practice is to encourage users to choose a complex combination of characters, including a capital and lowercase letter, number, and special characters. A poorly chosen password will unlock a world of possibility for a hacker, with personal and financial details on display, so it is important to insist on an uncrackable phrase.
3. Keep on top of outstanding security updates
Third party apps can help to offer an immersive and attractive online experience, but they are also a haven for hackers, and are constantly being probed for weaknesses. App developers regularly release updates to improve security, but it is often up to ecommerce business owners to activate these updates. Fortunately, Fasthosts domains offer intuitive auto-update functionality so retailers can always be on top of their site.
4. Ensure compulsory PCI compliance
The Payment Card Industry has a series of Data Security Standards, more commonly known as the PCI DSS, that businesses should abide by to keep passwords and payment details secure. Adhering to these standards goes a long way towards ensuring cyber security for customers. All businesses that process even one card transaction should comply with PCI standards.
5. Double down and encrypt your data
Ensuring your site is encrypted means that, even in the event of hacking, breached data is often rendered useless. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a measure that protects you and your customers’ information through 256-bit encryption. Retailers will know if a site has an SSL certificate right away because there will be a padlock in the address bar and the URL will begin with ‘https://’ rather than ‘http://.’