How COVID-19 endangers your e-commerce and 6 tips to avoid it now

Updated: Jul 15

The COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Countries, Institutions, and business leaders are facing tough choices with unprecedented levels of uncertainty. While short-term orientation is key, it is becoming increasingly clear that the crisis will permanently reshape the societal and economic order of the future and create opportunities, as has been the case with past global crises.

The numbers are astonishing:

Skyrocketing digital sales levels, with an increase of 210% in order volumes between February 2020 and April 2020
A leap of 63% in eCommerce web traffic between February 2020 and April 2020
Consumer engagement with reviews was up 105% between February 2020 and April 2020
Review submission levels and length rise in April 2020, while overall consumer sentiment (in the form of average product rating) remains steady

Now is the time to act. The bold and ambitious companies that embrace the new reality and take timely action can capture market share and emerge as the new market leaders. Action requires the courage to reinvent or alter your business model and to invest in new processes and tech in these times of high uncertainty. Find the companies we've helped navigate the cloud with during normal times to get a broader understanding of the importance of embracing the cloud.

Putting your business online also brings new risks to your company normal operations

Along with this monumental opportunity lies a comparable risk: the more value you have, the more appealing you are to hackers and digital thieves of all sorts. You need to protect your company and your customers' data, because a data leak, even a small one, can have you file for bankruptcy in no time.

Two-thirds of Small and Medium Business has suffered a cyber attack in the past 12 months, and the chances are even higher if your business has a strong online presence (Gardner).

Putting your business online brings new, unknown risks to your company operations, and with a very tight, COVID-19-propelled schedule, the time to hire and train a SecOps and DevOps team largely exceeds what any company can afford. Your best options are automated security systems and managed services from trustable companies.

These are 5 tips from an IT point of view that can automate the security of your operation:

1. Smart Scanning for Vulnerabilities

Online threats that haunt most businesses include vandalizing of websites that may lead to blacklisting, loopholes, and vulnerabilities that give the attackers access to sensitive information, malware that can install themselves into systems, and steal confidential data.

Organizations need to opt for solutions that can provide automated application scanning combined with manual penetration testing to look for logic flaws in coding and app vulnerability.

2. Look beyond SSL

Even though secure socket layers ensure the safe and encrypted flow of information between a browser and a server, it is not the be-all and end-all of securing web applications. A website may claim to be secure as they use 128 or 256-bit encryption and may even boast of a seal from an external certificate authority.

But what online retailers fail to understand is the fact that SSL cannot protect against application-layer attacks. Businesses need to deploy solutions that can provide multi-layer protection.

3. Data Encryption

Data encryption is important in the sense that it enhances the defense mechanism and protects sensitive information. Encryption also reduces the risk of hackers being able to crack passwords. Note: Encrypt on transit. and at rest.

4. Limit Access to Sensitive Information

It is important for organizations today to limit access to sensitive information to personnel in the organization who really need to have access to the same. Sharing information throughout the organization with employees who really don't need to use it increases the risk of the data being breached.

5. Firewall

The nature of web applications is intricate and needs to be frequently changed and updated. Constant updating leaves vulnerabilities and loopholes that hackers can very conveniently exploit to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. In such cases, the Web Application Firewall is the only way to virtually patch vulnerabilities like XSS and others.

Smarter business solutions AWS WAF and continuous monitoring with adaptation for any changes to the application make the WAF an apt security mechanism.

6. Compliance

Compliance can become a nightmare, especially if you store information about your users. Fortunately, a large part of it can be automated (see PCI Compliance). Some items to reduce the grunt work of keeping compliance on track:

Establish a Continuous Compliance monitoring and auditory strategy
Automate threat detection
Automate configuration change control and lifecycle.
Centralize user authentication.
Set alarms and notifications for any suspicious activity.

These tips will make your operation more secure as you grow your market share. If you combine this with a knowledgeable and trustable team to help you implement them, you will have the best chances of success. And if you add up security best practices, 24x7 monitoring, automated updates, large experience with e-commerce, and the many more perks you get when choosing Teracloud, you will be able to sleep much easier at night. We are experts in protecting information and ensuring that your business has the necessary tools so that you can offer products and services in complete safety.

Contact us for a quick analysis and evaluation of your infrastructure's security, to answer your security questions or just to grab a (now virtual) coffee

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