9 best practices for robust websites

If you run a website, specifically an e-commerce website, it is your responsibility to ensure that transactions occur securely and that the data of your users and clients are not compromised. Your WordPress website’s database stores personal data, physical and electronic addresses, credit card details, transaction logs, and much more, and you are responsible for the security and integrity of all this data.

Security is not synonymous with inviolability. There is no such thing as absolute security on the Internet, especially when it comes to open-source software. However, there are many security measures that you can take to minimize risks of breaches, data theft, and other more or less serious damage to your website or infrastructure. Remember that, according to the GDPR, the Data Controller is responsible for ensuring that data processing complies with the GDPR and data protection regulations.

The data controller determines the purposes for which and the means by which personal data is processed. So, if your company/organization decides ‘why’ and ‘how’ the personal data should be processed, it is the data controller. Employees processing personal data within your organization do so to fulfill your tasks as data controller.

A security flaw in a website can put a company’s life at risk. Who would want to entrust their credit card details to an insecure website? And what damage would result to your brand’s reputation if your customers’ data were stolen and used for illicit purposes?

In short, on the same level as performance, security is a mission-critical factor for a successful e-commerce website and business. With this in mind, in this article, we have gathered a list of security measures and best practices that every e-commerce owner should adopt in order to remain competitive in local and international markets and avoid serious legal liability and damage to their online business.

13 major security risks for e-commerce websites

According to the 2020 Trustwave Global Security Report, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and e-commerce environments are the most exposed industries to cybersecurity risks, with about 24% of the total security incidents in 2019.

This leads us to consider the importance of security for e-commerce websites, find out the threats that loom over an online business, and the measures that e-commerce site owners must take to secure their customers’ transactions and data.

To better understand the actions and best practices an online business owner must adopt to secure their websites and e-stores, we first need to understand the most dangerous threats to e-commerce websites.

Based on the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks, we compiled the following non-exhaustive list of the most widespread threats that e-commerce websites have to face today.

1. Malware and Ransomware

There are many types of malware and different levels of security threats. Hackers use them to hack devices and steal data. Malware can cause severe monetary damage and can even destroy an entire company.

Although the consequences may not always be so dire, your customers may receive the error message “The site ahead contains malware” or “Deceptive site ahead” or the like, and this can affect your site’s visibility in SERPs and damage your brand image seriously.

Ransomware is a sub-species of malware. In short, ransomware hijacks a device or website, denying access to its files until the victim pays a ransom for the decryption key.

Due to the high risk that a malware attack can have on an e-commerce website, scanning your e-commerce site regularly for malware infections is vital for your business.

Check Out Our Video Guide to Malware

2. Phishing

Phishing is a kind of social engineering attack used by cybercriminals to spread malware — usually through emails.

It refers to an attempt to steal sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card or bank account details, or other important data to use or sell with malicious intent. Typically, this type of attack is carried through spam and other forms of fraud emails or instant messages.

3. DDoS attacks

DDoS is the short term for distributed denial of service. This is a type of attack that floods a website with a large number of requests to overwhelm the server with excessive Internet traffic and take the website down. The consequence is that your site goes offline, and the bandwidth costs increase dramatically. This can also cause the suspension of your hosting account.

4. SQL injection

SQL injection is a kind of attack performed by a malicious actor who tries to inject SQL statements into a web application. If the attack is successful, they’ll be able to access your site database and read, modify, or remove data.

5. Cross-site scripting

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a kind of attack where someone attaches malicious code onto a website to be executed on page load. The injection happens on a user’s browser and typically aims to steal sensitive information.

6. Man-in-the-middle attacks

A man-in-the-middle (MitM) or on-path attack is a cyberattack where someone places in the middle of communication between two devices (such as a web browser and a web server) aiming to grab information and/or impersonate one of the two agents with malicious intent.

7. Credential stuffing

Credential Stuffing is a cyberattack where the attacker uses credentials obtained from a data breach on a service or website to log into a different service or website. This kind of attack is a common risk for professionals working from home and remote companies.

8. Zero-day exploits

A zero-day exploit is an unresolved or previously unknown security vulnerability that has no fix in place. Zero-day means that you have zero days to fix the issue before it causes serious damage to your business.

9. E-skimming

E-skimming or digital skimming is the insertion of malicious software into a retailer’s website aiming to steal payment data during checkout. This is also known as Magecart attack.

10. Brute force attacks

A brute force attack is a trial-and-error method used to decode sensitive data such as login credentials, API keys, and SSH credentials. Once a password has been compromised, it can be used to access other services if you use the same credentials on multiple websites. (See credential stuffing.)

Using strong passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication systems, and using a robust password manager are all best practices preventing this kind of cyberattacks.

11. Backdoors

A backdoor provides a way to bypass an authentication or encryption system to automatically log into a website, device, or service. Once a website or service has been breached, a malicious actor can create their own backdoors to access your website, steal data, and potentially destroy your entire site.

12. Social Engineering attacks

Social engineering attacks are particularly dangerous because they exploit characteristics of human nature: trust in others, lack of knowledge, discomfort in contravening an order, utilitarianism, and so on. The basis of social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people for the purpose of disclosure of confidential information such as passwords, bank account details, and financial information.

The most common channels used to perform this kind of attack are emails, chat, phone calls, social networks, websites, and others. The attacker can then use that information to conduct other kinds of exploits such as Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Check Out Our Video Guide To Understand All About CSRF Attacks

13. Supply Chain Attacks

Typically, with a supply chain attack, a cyber attacker infiltrates malicious code into a vendor’s software to be distributed with an update.

Although they are not as widespread as other backdoor attacks, supply chain attacks have been recently detected on several WordPress plugins.