2017 saw an increase in cybercrimes in Australia. Back in May, News.com.au reported on the massive ransomware attack across the world, mentioning that at least three private businesses in Australia were hit. While Australia didn’t experience any major attacks, other countries suffered losses. In total, the incident affected around 200,000 people in 150 countries. Countless computer systems were examined in relation to the extortion plot where users would get kicked out unless they sent payment.

2018 brings a clean slate of opportunities for online businesses to strengthen their security systems. Ecommerce platforms are the most at risk, since they involve payments and valuable information. In determining how strong your website’s defense is against hacker threats, consider some of these factors:

Customer data

Identity thefts will not occur if there is nothing to steal. Therefore, you should refrain from saving any customer data that isn’t important to your business. Storing payment card details is against PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards anyway. These details are usually handled by the payment provider. What you can do is use an encrypted checkout tunnel so that your servers won’t save any payment data.

Firewall

For your ecommerce business to have decent security, it should at least be able to withstand common attacks. Business2Community suggests to begin with a firewall, because it weeds out the untrusted networks and controls the website traffic. Firewalls serve as a great first line of defence against the usual hacking threats.

DoS and DDoS Protection

Once in a while, your server may be attacked by malicious queries that intend to keep your website from functioning properly. These Denial of Service or Distributed Denial of Service attacks can keep you out of business for a long time, which is why security measures should be taken to prevent them. DoS and DDoS raids can come from different sources, like applications and traffic flooding.

The best defence is to invest in more bandwidth, since a large amount of space will render it difficult for attackers to flood your site. The downside is that this is also the most expensive solution. However, it’s in your best interests to spend on security. DP Computing previously explained the importance of not being cheap when it comes to security technology, as it serves your business in the long run.

HTTPS

Another DP Computing article advised to pay close attention to the URLs on Google, because hackers would sometimes use phishing scams to acquire sensitive information from customers. These involve links that if accessed, will install malware on your PC that can steal information.

When checking URLs, be wary if the website uses only HTTP. It is more appropriate for ecommerce platforms to use HTTPS, especially on pages where data is created. Unlike in HTTPS, information entered on HTTP is not encrypted. The data is only sent as plain text, making it an easy target for hackers to intercept. Although, remember that not all website pages need to be in HTTPS, or else your website speed will suffer.

Pay attention as well to how your website appears on Google search results, especially if your business is using paid search ads. Ayima noted that Google has improved its algorithm on paid search ads, stating that emphasis is placed on close variants. This means that advertisers will have an easier time of building lists to match user queries. Since paid ads are becoming more rampant now, hackers have taken the opportunity to promote their malicious sites in order to fool thousands of victims. If by any chance, your website’s ad appears shady or seems similar to a malicious ad, take it as a sign to rethink your campaign.

In today’s digital landscape where hackers are getting more creative with their attacks, the importance of cyber security cannot be stressed further. For ecommerce businesses, security investment should be one of the top priorities. Left unchecked, your website could close down at any time, resulting in huge losses in revenue.