In this era of digitalization, a business is more successful online than through a shop or word of mouth. An online business can be a huge success or can be a fiasco, depending on ONE factor; cyber security. Without this security, any online business website is under the threat of a cyber-attack. A cyber attack is a baleful attempt by a third party to damage, destroy, alter, or hinder your business.
Protect your online business
To protect your online business website against various cyber crimes like phishing, hacking, ransomware, malware injection, etc, one must practice some of the security measures given below.
- Blockchain security: For every business/e-commerce website, capital transactions are the most crucial service. The best way to provide and ensure a safe transaction is to use the blockchain security system. It was initially created for the transaction of the digital currency known as “Bitcoin”. Nowadays it’s widely used by many of the leading online business websites.
- Creating Backup: A must-apply practice for all website users is to keep a backup of all the data that is being uploaded to your website, either digitally or manually. The benefit of this can be a) If your data goes missing you will have a backup b) If there is any information alteration you will know there is some problem on your website.
- Make your website secure: Have you ever seen the “NOT SECURE” sign in the URL box before the URL? It means you lack security for the connection to the page and any data sent to or received from the site can be stolen, read, altered, or manipulated by hackers. This is a huge security risk for the business provider as well as the business user. The only solution for this is to use of HTTPS protocol by buying a website security plan from your web hosting company.
- Provide Two-factor security: The authentication of the customer in an online business is very important. To make your website free of unauthorized customers the Two-factor security is the best measure. This system gives access to the customer only after confirming the user’s claimed identity by using two different factors to ensure security. First, utilizing something they know i.e. Password, and then applying the second factor.
- Beware of the customers: You may wonder that, If you run an e-commerce site you may face fraud from the customers too. For example, buying a product and returning a damaged product (that they already had), in place of the product they brought, claiming that it was damaged. The customer got a good product as well as a refund. Customer 1 Business Manager 0. Your business can go into a loss due to this occurrence. The best course of action to avoid this fraud is to identify, observe, and then block the customer from purchasing from your site. This same step was taken by Amazon towards the customers who frequently return.
- Protection from the Dark Web: The Dark Web is the digital black market. Not many people know about it because it’s the part of the iceberg that lay beneath the water. Invisible but there to sink your ship, or rather, your business. If your website is hacked by someone who has access to the dark web, your most private pieces of information are at risk of being sold out. For example, your bank account details, your social security number, your driver’s license, etc.
- Using different passwords: Using the same password for your hosting site, your website login, and your official email could be a convenient BUT dangerous move. Using a very strong as well as different password is very crucial in terms of security. The very recent Zomato hack happened due to the same reason. One of the developers of Zomato’s hosting account details became public due to a data breach on his hosting company. His email and password became public. Unfortunately, he used the same email and password on GitHub (an American-based software hosting company ) and the hackers used it to their advantage.
- Use a trustable firewall and encrypted Wi-Fi: As you are running an online business, having Wi-Fi is high on your priority list. Having an encrypted Wi-Fi and a firewall is as important as having the HTTPS protocol. Without these two, any type of malware can infect not only YOUR network connection and PC but can also spread to all the PCs connected to the same LAN as you and can affect all the devices connected to that network.
