Today, we live in the age of smart e-commerce. It is where billions of different transactions take place, which requires users to share personal and financial details over the internet. Collecting data is a necessary element of processing payments and conducting marketing, but it is also a tremendous activity. Here are 10 ways to protect your e-commerce data.
Best Ways To Protect Ecommerce Users Data
Here we have provided the top 10 ways that may help you while shopping from ecommerce platforms.
Demand Strong Passwords From Customers
You have witnessed sites asking customers to use strong passwords containing numerals, alphabets, and symbols. The reason behind this is that when the password is strong, it is not easily hacked or broken in to. Longer and more complex logins will make it harder for criminals to breach in your site.
Collect Only the Important Data
Ask the consumer the data that you only need to conduct transactions, when they share their information, they are trusting your business to keep it safe. Collecting excessive information can put your data security in danger because storing of such extensive data involves a higher chance of it being lost or stolen, which may harm your brand reputation in the long run.
Use Multiple Layers of Security
The best way to keep your business safe from cybercriminals is layering your security, employ a firewall to keep criminals out, and sensitive data in. One way to ensure that your e-commerce environment is protected is by adding extra layers of security to the website and applications such as contact forms, login boxes, and search queries.
Educate Your Customers
Keep your customers informed about the reasons for collecting a particular type of data and how it would be put to use. Teach them how to spot suspicious behavior on your website so that they can immediately inform you if something goes wrong.
Educate Employees
Employees need to know the laws and policies that affect customer data and be trained on the actions required to keep it safe. They are the handlers of customer data. Therefore, they need to be updated on the newest fraud schemes and employ best practices such as not responding to or opening attachments or links in unsolicited email messages.
Destroy Data After Using it
After completing and making the most of customer’s data, you should get rid of it entirely. The storing of such information online is doubling your wager on cybersecurity. It reinforces customers’ confidence in your privacy measures and transparency. In case if the information is lost, you will end up with a damaged reputation and also legal penalties for losses.
Keep a Clean Machine
You should have the latest security software, operating system, and web browser to defend against viruses, malware, and other online threats. Most of the security program will automatically update and connect to defend against known risks. Turn on the automatic update if that’s available in the option.
Employ an Address and Card Verification System
For credit card transactions, enable an address verification system and require the card verification value to reduce fraudulently. Usually lost or stolen credit cards are used by the criminals to purchase an amount without the knowledge of the owner.
Be PCI DSS Compliant
PCI data security standards (PCI DSS) restricts the cardholder’s information and the need for creating safe, non-default passwords, more in-depth practices like encryption, and the use of a firewall. It is a must-have for any website that transacts money online. If you comply to PCI DSS, your website is considered as safe to transact money with.
Encrypt
It is crucial to encrypt your passwords and other sensitive information as a precaution in case the data fall into the wrong hands. If you are storing customers’ data in your computer, you should encrypt your hard disk as well as using services that offer encrypting your data, in case your laptop is stolen or misplaced your customer data won’t be compromised.
Takeaway
If you put effort to expend to protect customer information and the more people know about it, the higher the overall level of consumer comfort. Companies should abide by the laws and stay on top of the subject of data protection. To maintain loyal customers, it depends on how you make their data privacy as your daily priority.