What is the First Step in Developing an E-commerce Security Plan?
When it comes to E-commerce business, online security is a crucial part. Several unwanted situations can occur without proper security in place, leading the business to lose its integrity, asset, consumers, and reputation.
Developing an E-commerce security plan can help avoid such mishaps. The first step to develop an E-commerce security plan is to perform a risk assessment. From there, companies can develop a security policy, develop an implementation plan, create a security organization, and perform a security audit.
Here in this article, we will discuss these steps in detail on how an IT specialist can help E-commerce stores to develop a security plan.
Prominent Security Threats for E-commerce Stores
Before learning how to enhance security in E-commerce websites, it is important to know about the threats a website can face. Each day, an E-commerce website is under the threat of hacker interference and significant data leakage. Here are 7 crucial threats that any E-commerce website may encounter at any moment:
- Customer database theft to obtain client data. It can lead to the withdrawal of money from consumer accounts, or the database can be sold to a competitor of the business.
- Payment fraud.
- Product catalog changes can customize product descriptions or change product prices.
- Operation process interference. This redirects the customer flow to defacement or other resources.
- Suspicious code injection into web pages. Hackers often do it to steal credit card details by creating an infected computer network.
- DDoS attack to disable the entire site.
- Parasite site emergence. This utilizes a business’s reputation and resources to sell low-quality products. It affects the original business’s success and severely impacts SERP rankings.
Therefore, any online store should focus on enhancing security to block all those mishaps. However, most business owners, especially small business owners, can’t afford it. However, hiring an IT specialist can help in improving E-commerce online store safety and eliminate threats. You can also check cybersecurity company inland empire.
Steps to Eliminate Threats and Develop a Security Plan
Any security threat a business faces can lead to significant asset loss. Moreover, a business will lose its loyal consumers and face lawsuits due to security breaches. Therefore, it is crucial for a business to develop a security plan to avoid such results.
Security plan development starts by performing a risk assessment. Once the risk assessment is done, the business will learn where its security is vulnerable and can develop a security policy to avoid any mishaps.
As a security plan is developed, the company starts to build a plan to implement the new security measures. When implantation occurs, the company will generate a security organization to distribute security tasks to its employees.
Auditing security repeatedly within a certain time period is crucial to keep the online store safe from hackers. This ensures that the site is safe from cyber-attacks and can perform its functions accordingly.
Performing Risk Assessment
It is the first step in developing an E-commerce security plan. In this phase, businesses assess the risks and vulnerabilities of their website. This assessment is done in three stages:
Stage 1: Identifying Information Assets
An information asset holds information that is the property of a company or a consumer. It can be documents, telephones, computers, flash drives, or servers of a business. To avoid security breaches, companies need first to identify their information assets.
After identifying, companies need to list them and label them accordingly. Thus, the business owner will clearly understand who is using what company assets and hold them responsible for any security breaches.
Stage 2: Classifying Information Assets
Once the assets are identified, then these assets need to be classified according to their importance. This classification depends on which asset causes what consequences if breached.
Any asset containing consumer information or company proprietary information is classified as a high-risk asset. Assets containing marketing skills are classified as low-risk assets. Anything else falls in between these categories.
Stage 3: Assessing Risks
In this stage, the company assesses each information asset’s vulnerability in case of a security breach. For this, companies need to consider both deliberate and accidental threats to estimate the likelihood of getting breached.
It is crucial to record any possible threat in the IT security system since any security breach can cause vulnerabilities and malfunction. In case of any adverse impacts, the information technology system and assets can go through severe harm. With a well-documented system, businesses can identify those threats earlier and install preventative measures to avoid them.
Bottom Line
Risk assessment is the first step in developing a solid E-commerce security plan. This assessment allows companies to avoid severe information breaches and protect crucial information. A team of IT specialists or an IT agency can help small businesses significantly in this manner.
IT agencies help businesses assess their threats and take the necessary steps to avoid data breaches. Moreover, it may be more cost-effective than hiring a dedicated IT specialist.
Therefore, small business owners should consider hiring an IT specialist agency to develop a solid security plan and maintain it accordingly.
