As an ecommerce store owner, you need to keep your customers’ personal details secure, but how do you do that? Well, there are actually quite a lot of fairly simple precautions you can take. Ecommerce website development is our speciality, therefore we make sure to do the basic tasks first, followed by the next set of priority tasks, and then finish with the more advanced work. If we apply these categories to making your ecommerce store secure from hackers, it’ll be much easier to achieve.
Basic tasks to secure your ecommerce site
Here are seven tasks that you can action with your ecommerce developer to secure your store. Keep in mind that the best ecommerce website builders will normally already handle a lot of these items when they build your online store, but it’s worth double-checking.
- Passwords: Prevent hackers identifying your passwords by using at least 10 characters, mixing in capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers and even symbols. Don’t use the same passwords for multiple accounts and don’t use easy words like admin, password or your store name.
- Hosting: Your server needs a firewall, malware, automatic store backups and the latest PHP and MYSQL. You also want good customer support to help fix any security issues quickly.
- Plugins: Only buy premium plugins that are updated and patched regularly, because low quality plugins can pose a significant security risk.
- Backups: Make sure that your site is backed up in real time, so you don’t lose any orders and can get your site back up in just a few minutes.
- Updates: Update all your plugins regularly as these include security patches to thwart hackers.
- SSLs: This certificate helps to make your site transaction secure, giving customers confidence when purchasing from your store.
- Jetpack: Consider loading Jetpack, as it protects against brute force attacks and many other hacking attempts on your ecommerce website. Your ecommerce web design company may have similar software they use instead.
Development of your store depends heavily on customer trust, so it’s important that you initiate these tasks as soon as possible.
Medium priority tasks to secure your ecommerce site
There are three tasks in this section: restricting access to your CMS, scanning your site for malicious code, and checking all logins. Again, the best ecommerce websites will likely have these in place, but it never hurts to revisit the list on a regular basis to ensure everything is still set up correctly.
- Access: You should regularly review user permissions and only give access to areas that each person needs to perform their job.
- Scans: Scanning your website for malicious activities and code changes prevents hackers accessing your customer’s data. This is another task that the Jetpack can perform on a daily basis.
- Logins: Monitor all logins and the actions taken by each user on a daily basis. If unauthorised changes are made, you can remove these changes by installing your most recent backup.
High priority tasks to secure your ecommerce site
There are two tasks in this section, but they may require a higher level of ecommerce website development experience. These tasks are setting up a firewall and enabling secure authentication.
- Firewalls: It’s important that not only your server has a firewall, but also that your ecommerce store has one as well. So look for a firewall plugin and upload it to your site.
- Authentication: Double down on your login security by requiring an access code to be sent to the user’s mobile phone. Jetpack offers this type of service.
If all of this seems a little overwhelming, talk to our expert team at GO Creative. As an ecommerce website design company established in 2001, we have the experience and skills to help you secure your online store. While our range of ecommerce website development packages already covers the essentials, we can also help with existing websites.
