Threats & protections for e-commerce payment system.

Different types of Threats & protections for e-commerce payment system

• In e-commerce the electronic payment systems play a very important role. E-commerce companies use electronic payment systems that apply to money transactions that are paperless. 
• By cutting paperwork, transaction costs, and labor costs, it revolutionized business distribution.
• E-commerce processing is user-friendly and less time consuming than manual processing. 
• Electronic commerce helps a business organization expand its market reach expansion. There is a certain risk with the electronic payments system.

Some of them are....

1. Cyber Security Threat to E-Commerce.
2. E-Commerce Security Threats & Issues.

Cyber Security Threat to E-Commerce

1. The Risk of Fraud.
2. The Risk of Tax Evasion.
3. The Risk of Payment Conflicts.
4. Backdoor Attacks.
5. Denial of service attacks.
6. Direct Access Attacks.
7. Eavesdropping.
8. Credit/Debit card fraud.
9. E-cash.

1. The Risk of Fraud.

• An electronic payment system runs a substantial risk of fraud. The computing devices use the person's identity to approve a charge, such as passwords and security issues. 
• These authentications do not constitute full proof in determining a person's identity. 
• If the security questions suit the password and the answers, the program doesn't matter who's on the other side. 
• If someone has access to our password or the answers to our security question, they can gain access to our money, and they can steal it.

2. The Risk of Tax Evasion.

• Internal Revenue Service law requires each company to report its financial transactions and provide paper records to check tax compliance. 
• The issue with electronic systems is they don't provide this concept cleanly. 
• For the Internal Revenue Service it makes the tax collection process very difficult. 
• Disclosure of payments obtained or made through electronic payment systems is at the discretion of the company. 
• The IRS has no way of knowing whether telling the truth is or not making it easy to evade taxes.

3. The Risk of Payment Conflicts.

• The payments are done in electronic payment systems through an automated electronic system, not by humans. 
• The program is prone to errors when dealing with large sums of money with more than one recipient involved on a frequent basis. 
• Continuous review of our pay slip after each pay period is over is essential to ensure that everything makes sense. If this is not achieved, it could result in

4. Backdoor Attacks.

• This is a form of attack that allows an attacker to circumvent the standard authentication mechanisms to unauthorized access to a system. 
• It works in the background and hides itself from the user making detection and removal difficult.

5. Denial of service attacks.

• A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber attack in which the attacker takes action that prevents access by legitimate (correct) users to the electronic devices. 
• It makes a network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily disrupting a host's internet-connected services.

7. Eavesdropping.

• This is an illegal method of listening over the network to private communication. 
• It does not interfere with the targeting system's normal operations so that the sender and the message receiver are not aware of the recording of their communication.

8. Credit/Debit card fraud.

• A credit card allows us to borrow money to make transactions from a receiver bank. 
• The credit card issuer has the condition that with an extra agreed-upon fee, the cardholder must pay back the borrowed money.
• A debit card is a plastic card issued to account holder by the financial institution with a savings deposit account that can be used to make purchases instead of cash. 
• The debit card may only be used when the fund is in the account.

9. E-cash.

• E-cash is a paperless cash system allowing anonymous transfer of funds. The customer is free to collect e-cash while the sellers paid a fee for this. 
• The e-cash fund can be deposited either on a card itself or on a card-related account. 
• Transit card, PayPal, GooglePay, Paytm and so on are the most common examples of e-cash systems.

E-cash has four major components-

1. Issuers - They can be banks or a non-bank institution.
2. Customers - They are the users who spend the e-cash.
3. Merchants or Traders - They are the vendors who receive e-cash.
4. Regulators - They are related to authorities or state tax agencies.

• In e-cash, we stored financial information that is vulnerable to hackers on the server, electronic device or on the internet. Some of the big e-cash network risks are...

E-Commerce Security Threats & Issues

• There are quite a few threats you need to protect your online store from. Let’s touch on a few common ones that often plague online businesses.

1. Financial Frauds.
2. Spam.
3. Phishing.
4. Bots.
5. DDoS Attacks.
6. Brute Force Attacks.
7. SQL Injections.
8. XSS.
9. Trojan Horses.

1. Financial Frauds.

• Digital companies have been plagued by financial fraud since its inception. 
• Hackers make unauthorized transactions and wipe out large amounts of revenue from the trail costing companies.
• Many fraudsters often file fake refund or return requests. 
• Refund fraud is a growing financial fraud where businesses refund items which have been illegally acquired or damaged goods.
• Jimmy, for example, is fond of capitalizing on fraudulent activities. 
• He knows friendly fraud is a simple medium where he can buy an object, use it and then repay it to get back his money, so he does it!

2. Spam.

• While emails are regarded as a powerful channel for higher sales, it is also one of the widely used spamming mediums. 
• Nevertheless, comments on your blog or contact forms are also an open invitation to spammers online where they leave tainted links to hurt you. 
• We also send them in boxed via social media, waiting for you to click on these messages.

3. Phishing.

• It is one of E-Commerce's common security threats where hackers pose as legitimate businesses and send emails to your customers to trick them into disclosing their sensitive information by simply presenting them with a fake copy of your legitimate website, or anything that causes the customer to believe that the request comes from the company.
• Popular phishing techniques include contacting you by email

4. Bots.

• You that recognize bots from your good books like those that crawl the web and help you rank your website in Search Engine Results Pages. 
• There are however exclusive bots built to scrape websites for their details on pricing and inventory. 
• The hackers use such knowledge to adjust the online store's prices, or to capture the best-selling stock in shopping carts, resulting in sales and revenue decreasing.

5. DDoS Attacks.

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and DOS (Denial of Service) attacks are aimed at disrupting your website and affecting sales at large. 
• These attacks flood your servers with numerous requests until your website crashes and they succumb to them.

6. Brute Force Attacks.

• Such attacks hit the admin panel of your online store, in an effort to brute-force find out your password. 
• This uses programs to connect to your website and use any combination to crack your password. 
• By using a powerful, complex password, you can protect yourself from such attacks. Mind to regularly change it.

7. SQL Injections.

• SQL injections are cyber-attacks designed to access the database by exploiting input forms for queries. 
• They inject malicious code into your database, collect data, and later delete it.

8. XSS.

• By infecting your online store with malignant code, hackers threaten your website visitors. 
• By following Content Protection Policy you can defend yourself against it.

9. Trojan Horses.

• Admins and consumers could be running Trojan Horses on their devices. 
• It is one of the biggest safety risks to the network where criminals use these applications to quickly steal sensitive information from their machines.

Some of the important threats associated with the Debit/Credit card

ATM (Automated Teller Machine)

• It is the fraudster's favorite place from where they can steal our card details. Some of the essential strategies that offenders choose to keep our card information are ....

Skimming

• It is the mechanism by which a data-skimming device is connected to the ATM card reader. 
• When the customer swipes their card from the ATM card reader, the information is copied to the system from the magnetic stripe. 
• In doing so, the offenders get to know the details of the Card number, name, CVV number, card expiry date and other information.

Unwanted Presence

• It is a law that the ATM should not be used at a time by more than one person. 
• If we see more than one people standing together, the purpose behind this is to forget the specifics of our card when making our transaction.

Vishing/Phishing

• Phishing is an operation in which a user's sensitive information such as password, usernames and credit card details are accessed by an attacker, often for malicious reasons etc.
• Vishing is an incident in which an attacker accessed a user's sensitive information by sending a SMS to mobile phones. 
• Those SMS and Call appear to be from a reliable source, but they are fake in fact. 
• The main purpose of vishing and phishing is to get PIN, account data and passwords from the user.

Online Transaction

• The customer will make an online transaction to do the shopping and pay their bills electronically. 
• The breaking into our network and stealing our sensitive information is as simple as it is for the consumer, too. 
• A few effective ways to steal our confidential information during a transaction online are

1. By downloading software which scans our keystroke and steals our password and card details.
2. By redirecting a customer to a fake website which looks like original and steals our sensitive information.
3. By using public Wi-Fi

Why You Should Prioritize E-Commerce Security?

• Security issues in e-commerce can't be neglected by online companies. 
• It should in fact be a priority for most online stores, so that their customers can enjoy a smooth and healthy shopping experience. 
• Your e-commerce protection lets you protect your customers from cyber-attacks and fraud. 
• The better your security protocols are, the better your brand will maintain and earn its reputation.

E-Commerce Security Solutions/Protections

• Ideally secure e-commerce stores have some features in common. 
• They are not economizing on robust hardware; they are not relying too heavily on third-party apps or plug-ins like adobe flash. 
• Let's further breakdown these features so you don't have to face any e-commerce security issues.

1. Switch to HTTPS.
2. Secure Your Servers and Admin Panels.
3. Payment Gateway Security.
4. Antivirus and Anti-Malware Software.
5. Use Firewalls.
6. Secure your website with SSL certificates.
7. Employ Multi-Layer Security.
8. E-Commerce Security Plugins.
9. Backup Your Data.
10. Stay Updated.
11. Opt for a Solid E-Commerce Platform.
12. Train Your Staff Better.
13. Keep an Eye out for Malicious Activity.

1. Switch to HTTPS

• You are vulnerable to attacks using outdated HTTP protocols. 
• I strongly recommend switching to HTTPS which shows a green lock sign on your customer's computer that says "secured" next to the URL bar. 
• HTTPS protocols protect not only the sensitive information that users send, but also the user data.
• Since the majority of HTTP protocols are now obsolete, most modern browsers display a message warning the user to proceed further because the website is unsafe. 
• Not only that, some browsers block users outright from accessing the site.
• The advantage of switching to HTTPS is higher ranking on Google's search page because Google uses HTTPS as a ranking factor.
• You must obtain an SSL certification from your hosting company before making the move. 
• Using an up-to-date SSL certificate and HTTPS protocol has become the standard, so if you want to get any significant traffic it is important that you get them.

2. Secure Your Servers and Admin Panels

• Most sites for e-commerce come with basic passwords that are shockingly easy to guess. And if you don't change them you expose yourself to hacks that are preventable. 
• Use and frequently change complex passwords and usernames.
• You can go a step further and each time an unknown IP tries to sign in, the panel will alert you. 
• Such simple steps will greatly enhance the protection of your Web store.

3. Payment Gateway Security

• Although it may make payments processing more convenient, it is a liability to have credit card numbers stored on your database.  
• It's nothing short of an open invitation for hackers to place on the line the credibility of your company and the sensitive information of your customers.
• When you fall victim to a breach of security and hackers get their hands on credit card details, all you can do is say goodbye to your account.
• To save your company from this terrible fate, you should never store credit card information on your servers and ensure the protection of your payment gateways is not in danger. You can also use third-party payment processing systems to handle the off-site transactions. Popular options include PayPal, Stripe, Wordplay, Skrill, and...
• When it comes to the advice on e-commerce, you must get
 a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) accreditation.

4. Antivirus and Anti-Malware Software

• Hackers can use stolen credit card details from anywhere in the world to place orders. 
• An antivirus or software to counter fraud will help you with this important e-commerce problem. 
• To help you take more action, they use advanced algorithms to mark any suspicious transactions. 
• We provide a probability score for fraud that may help proprietors assess whether a specific transaction is legitimate.

5. Use Firewalls

• Another effective E-Commerce advice is to use pocket-friendly and effective firewall apps and plug-ins. 
• They keep untrusted networks at bay and control traffic that comes into your site and leaves it. 
• It provides selective permeability and lets only trusted traffic in. 
• We also guard against cyber threats, such as cross-site scripting and SQL injections.

6. Secure your website with SSL certificates

• Secure layer sockets (SSL) certificates are files that connect a key to a network's transactions on different paths. Such certificates are connected to credit card details and to routine queries transactions. 
• SSL certificates encrypt data to secure between different destinations from interception. The information that you send to the server from your end is secure.
• If you want to conduct any type of business on your website, you need SSL certificates, so that every process on your website is secure. 
• In fact, it gives you an ownership certificate so hackers can't use your account as a phishing spoof.

7. Employ Multi-Layer Security

• You can improve your security through the use of various security layers. 
• You can use a wide-spread Content Delivery Network or CDN to protect your site from DDoS attacks and incoming malevolent traffic. 
• We do so by using machine learning to sort out normal traffic from the malicious traffic.
• In an additional layer of security, you can also use two-factor authentication to pinch. 
• Two-factor authorization involves a common combination of username and password, as well as an additional code that is sent to the user as an email or as a Text to their phone number. 
• It means that the software is available only to the user, even if their username and password are at risk.

8. E-Commerce Security Plugins

• Security plugins are a simple way to enforce security protection on your website. They provide protection against bad bots, SQLi, XSS, code injections and hundreds of other severe attacks. One of the most secure, easy to implement, feature rich security plugin is Astra. It helps automatically secure your site and virtually patch software by preventing malicious requests from ever reaching your website.

9. Backup Your Data

• It is not unusual to lose data due to hardware failure or cyber-attacks. And if you don't regularly back up your data you risk losing it for good. 
• You should do it yourself, and you should not expect anyone else to do it. 
• Using automatic backup service, so that all your data will be backed up automatically even if you fail to do it manually.
• You can go a step further and make a copy of the backup so if you lose your original backup, you will have a contingency plan open. 
• Another choice is to choose a managed e-commerce web hosting service that, like Cloudways, will automatically generate backups for you.

10. Stay Updated

• The value of upgrading WordPress core, security tools, and plugins on a regular basis can be difficult, so install security updates and fixes as soon as they are released as hackers can use bots to recognize which websites are using outdated software.

11. Opt for a Solid E-Commerce Platform

• It's essential that you choose a reliable e-commerce platform that updates itself regularly and provides top-notch protection. 
• Platform e-commerce tools protect you against common threats and often provide you with updates. 
• Some popular choices include PrestaShop, Magento, and WooCommerce.

12. Train Your Staff Better

• The laws and policies about the security of user information should be communicated to your employees. 
• They should not share login credentials and you should review staff who have access to sensitive information about customers.
• When your employee has applied for resignation, delete their information and revoke all access to them to prevent them from committing a cyber crime against your company.

13. Keep an Eye out for Malicious Activity

• You will keep your eyes open for any suspicious activity if you don't want any malicious attack to go under the red carpet. 
• This can save you a lot of trouble–not to mention revenue–because before it can happen, you can potentially catch a fraudulent transaction. 
• You can use special surveillance software to track the operation in real time and inform you of any suspicious transaction. 
• For example, a scammer that uses different cards to place multiple orders, or orders where the person that uses the card is not its holder.