8 Security Best Practices to Keep Your E-Commerce Business Secure

Providing your customers with a secure online shopping experience is crucial to your e-commerce business’s success. With the increasing prevalence of cyber threats, such as API attacks, data breaches, and malware infections, protecting your customer’s personal and financial information ensures that their purchasing experiences will be as enjoyable and as safe as possible. Additionally, when customers feel confident that their information is safe from hackers and cybercriminals, it fosters a sense of trust and loyalty. This means that they’re more likely to return to your website for future purchases and recommend your business to others. Moreover, a strong security posture can enhance your business’s image and reputation, positioning your brand as a trustworthy and reliable player in the marketplace.

All that being said, to achieve this level of security, it is essential to employ a range of tried and tested strategies. Here are some security best practices that you can implement to keep your e-commerce business secure.

Get an SSL Certificate

The first step to securing your e-commerce website is to obtain an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. This digital certificate encrypts data transmitted between your website and your customers' browsers, ensuring that sensitive information such as login credentials, payment details, and personal information remains confidential and protected from unauthorized access. You can tell if a website has SSL certification if you can see a padlock in the browser's address bar. When you have the certificate, not only are you enhancing the security of your website, but you’re also assuring your customers that their information is safe from interception.

You can purchase an SSL certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). Once installed on your web server, the SSL certificate activates HTTPS protocol on your website, signaling to visitors that your site is secure and trustworthy.

Use a Secure Payment Gateway

To process online payment transactions, it's imperative to use a secure payment gateway that complies with industry standards and employs robust security measures. After all, a payment gateway acts as the intermediary between your e-commerce website and financial institutions, so you’ll want to employ one that has world-class security features to ensure every online payment processed has gone through a secure network.

The payment solutions offered by Maya Business, including the industry-leading Maya Checkout payment gateway, are protected by a suite of robust security features that can keep your customers’ data secure. Not only are our online payment processing products and services compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), but they also use proxy detection to proactively detect and prevent fraudulent transactions from parties who spoof their IP addresses. They also make use of CSC verification checks that verify the credit or debit card’s card verification code to ensure that the card is valid.

By partnering with an online payment processing company that offers a secure payment gateway, you can provide your customers with a seamless and secure checkout experience, enhancing trust and confidence in your e-commerce business.

Implement a Strong Password Policy

Weak or easily guessable passwords can provide an entry point for cybercriminals to access sensitive information and compromise your e-commerce site. Enforcing a strong password policy for both customers and employees can mitigate this risk. Strong passwords are often quite long and complex, as they typically include a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. This makes them difficult to crack, which can deter hackers from trying to access your customers’ or employees’ accounts further. You can also implement multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever possible to add an extra layer of security. MFA requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access, significantly reducing the likelihood of unauthorized access.

Encourage your customers to follow password protection protocols by educating them on the importance of maintaining strong, unique passwords and regularly changing their passwords. You should also conduct employee training sessions to ensure that all staff members understand and adhere to the password policy. Training can include best practices for creating and managing passwords, recognizing phishing attempts, and the importance of not sharing passwords.

Limit Employee Access and Permissions

Not all employees need complete access to all sections of your e-commerce website; therefore, it's essential to limit access and permissions to only the systems that are necessary for them to perform their job functions. Implementing strict access controls helps minimize the risk of insider threats and ensures that sensitive data is accessible only to those who need it, strengthening your website’s security as a result.

You can use role-based access control to define roles and assign permissions based on the specific needs of each role. Regularly review and update access permissions to ensure that they remain aligned with employees' responsibilities. Furthermore, promptly revoke access for employees who leave the company or change roles to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Perform Regular Backups

Regularly backing up your e-commerce data is an essential practice for ensuring business continuity and protecting against data loss. It provides a safety net in the event of a security breach, hardware failure, or other data loss incidents (including those that may occur due to disasters like typhoons and fires), allowing you to quickly restore your website and resume operations with minimal disruption.

Implement an automated backup solution that regularly backs up your website, databases, and other critical data to a secure, off-site location. Ensure that backups are encrypted and stored securely to prevent unauthorized access. Also periodically test your backup and restoration processes to verify that they work correctly and that you can recover your data in the event of an emergency. Having reliable backups in place not only safeguards your business against data loss but also helps you maintain customer trust by ensuring that their information remains protected and recoverable.

Implement Web Application Firewalls

Web application firewalls (WAFs) provide an additional layer of defense against various web-based attacks. A WAF monitors and filters incoming web traffic to your e-commerce website, inspecting each request and response to identify and block malicious activity in real time. By analyzing HTTP requests and detecting common attack patterns such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a WAF helps protect your website from unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats. Additionally, WAFs can enforce access control policies, allowing you to restrict access to sensitive areas of your website and prevent unauthorized users from exploiting vulnerabilities.

When selecting a WAF solution for your e-commerce business, have your web developer opt for a robust and scalable platform that offers comprehensive threat detection capabilities and seamless integration with your existing security infrastructure.

Update Software and Plugins Regularly

Software vendors frequently release updates and patches to address security vulnerabilities, bug fixes, and performance enhancements. Thus, regularly updating software and plugins is essential for maintaining the security of your e-commerce website. Failing to apply these updates promptly can leave your website susceptible to cyberattacks and exploitation by malicious actors.

To ensure that you’re updating your website’s features on time, have your web developer or tech provider set up automatic updates where possible to streamline the update process and minimize the risk of overlooking critical security updates.

Conduct Frequent Security Audits and Penetration Testing

Conducting comprehensive security audits and penetration frequently can help identify and address security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by malicious actors. Security audits involve systematic assessments of your e-commerce infrastructure, including your website, servers, databases, and network, to identify potential security weaknesses and gaps in your security defenses. On the other hand, penetration testing (also known as ethical hacking) involves simulating real-world cyberattacks to assess the effectiveness of your security controls. This way, you can spot potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers and keep your e-commerce site safe from new cyber threats.

Prioritizing your e-commerce’s security and adopting a proactive approach to risk management enables you to build a resilient business that instills confidence in your customers. With the help of these strategies, you can fortify your e-commerce website against cyber threats, protect your customers’ sensitive information, and achieve your goals with peace of mind.

Enhance Your E-Commerce Business With the Help of Maya Business

Create a Maya Business account today so that you can provide your customers with a secure online shopping experience. Setting up a Maya Business account makes it easier to integrate our online payment solutions—all of which boast robust security features like PCI DSS compliance and the latest fraud detection features—into your e-commerce process.

Signing up also enables you to open a Maya Business Deposit account and use it as your settlement account. With an industry-leading 2.5% per annum interest rate, you’ll earn PHP 25,000 in interest per year on a PHP 1 million deposit. Furthermore, you’ll be able to send money to your partners and suppliers for free via InstaPay and PESONet, letting you save more.

Additionally, you’ll be qualified for a no-collateral Maya Flexi Loan offer of up to PHP 2 million in just 3 months, allowing you to have another funding source to further develop your business. Just use Maya as your primary processor for all wallet and card payments. The more you use our solutions, the better the loan offer will be.

Sign up for Maya Business today to enjoy the benefits of Maya Business solutions.