Online Transactions and Banking:
Internet can help you to expand your business and potential customer base to all those connected to the world wide web if you opt for selling online. But you need to be aware from fraudsters, cyber vandals and criminals as it also can expose your business.
Fraudulent purchases can result in lost revenue and reputation and dealing with credit card charge backs can be time consuming and make it difficult to assess your current financial position.
Having an online shop can expose your systems to unauthorized access and theft of customer information such as credit card details. Vandals and criminals can also attempt to disrupt your business through denial of services attacks, typically to extort money.
To take full advantage of the digital economy you need to put in place some simple security measures so your business and your customers are protected.
Safety Tips on Internet:
- Secure your e-commerce website. Use the latest version of your e-commerce software and make sure your server is secure.
- Keep a look out for suspect online orders. Taking steps to verify a buyer is genuine when you receive an order will save you the potential hassle of a credit card charge back later, and may prevent fraud.
- Use strong passwords and change them regularly. Particularly in securing customer financial data.
- Regularly monitor and test your e-commerce systems. Conduct penetration tests of your systems and audit your security practices to ensure best practice.
- Don’t store private customer data and credit card details on a public e-commerce server. Store these details offline.
How to Identify Suspect Online Orders?
There are a number of warning signs that can help you identify suspect online orders:
- Using the most expensive shipping methods.
- Different credit card and delivery addresses.
- PO Box delivery addresses.
- International orders.
- Ordering the most expensive products or unusually large quantities.
- Using free, web-based email addresses.
- Unusual order patterns: for example, orders placed in the middle of the night or in rapid succession.
Take steps to protect yourself against fraud:
- Consider only delivering to credit card billing addresses.
- Take advantage of any fraud screening programs run by your payment services provider.
- For business to business sales, run a credit check on new customers.
- Consider adopting a verification program available from Visa or Mastercard.
- Get the card security code for credit cards (the extra three security digits on the signature strip) and check it.
Ways to Secure your e-commerce website:
Make sure your ecommerce website is secure. If you have created your own ecommerce server rather than using a third party hosting company, it is especially important to make sure that the hardware and software is secure. In summary:
- Use the latest version of any ecommerce software. Old versions may have security flaws that hackers can exploit.
- Don’t store customers’ private information and credit card details on a public ecommerce server.
- Use strong passwords throughout the system. Don’t leave any password set to its default value.
- Make sure the server is protected by an effective firewall and anti-virus software.
- Monitor log files carefully to spot any attempts at intrusion.
- Protect your SSL details and keep them secret.
- Consider getting a professional firm to test the defences on your ecommerce system.
