For organizations operating e-Commerce platforms, there are possibly various things to be prioritized, including usability, performance, functionality, and mobile-friendliness. However, it is sometimes challenging to identify the appropriate measures and tests to channel energy, time, and resources. Through measuring the security and risk assessment of an e-commerce platform, the site operators can better understand the high priority areas, to aid in informing relevant security decisions. Here are the top 5 ways to measure e-commerce security and risk assessment.
#1. Static and Dynamic Security Testing
Both static and dynamic application security testing activities are essential for measuring the security of e-commerce sites. Static testing means checking all the servers, applications, and databases associated with the website to assess their safety. Also, it entails using various technologies designed to analyze the e-commerce platform source code, binaries and byte code for coding, and design conditions that may indicate security vulnerabilities. Through a static testing approach, you can analyze the security of different e-commerce applications.
On the other hand, a dynamic security testing approach is a necessity for strengthening the security of e-commerce platforms. Dynamic testing tools contain advanced designs used to automate security tests, focused on the detection of possible security shortcomings. The tests assess the security of HTTP and HTML interfaces in a bid to uncover risks present in the e-commerce application.
#2. PCI and SSL Compliance:
The essence of encrypting information transmitted through e-commerce sites, can’t be underscored. It is a crucial measure since all visitors and clients send highly sensitive data to the platforms, sometimes through insecure networks. In most cases, the information must pass through different systems before it can reach the intended server. Through such a chain, unencrypted data can be compromised in different ways. As such, SSL compliance is a mandatory measure for ensuring the security of transmitted data. An e-commerce site with an SSL certificate further promotes business as it assures current and potential clients that their information is secured. Similarly, an e-commerce website owners must comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) regulations as they assist in significantly reducing fraud cases, further enhancing the site’s security.
3. Implementing Penetration Testing Exercises:
Penetration testing remains to be one of the top ways of determining the security and assessing risks in an e-commerce platform. It consists of attacking a website through the mindset of a hacker to identify areas where it is most vulnerable. Pen testing results provide a clear picture of existing security flaws and vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to launch attacks. As such, an organization can channel resources, time, and human labour to mitigate the most severe risks. Subsequently, it can realize a secure platform. The pen testing process should be ongoing since criminals create new vulnerabilities every other day.
4. Deploy Real-Time Bot Detection Measures:
Contrary to popular belief, not all internet traffic is safe or legitimate. Bots comprise at least 50% of the total website traffic, whereas malicious bots represent 30% of the entire website frauds, done in e-commerce sites. Real-time technologies for detecting such bots can prevent substantial risks such as compromised web security, lost opportunities, and depressed sales. The techniques are essential to measuring the risks which malicious bots pose to an e-commerce platform.
5. Monitor Malicious Processes:
Sometimes, security risks can be trigger by malicious employees, typically known as insider threats. They may be involved in activities such as illegal data transfer or modifications, or collaborate with hackers in planting malware to achieve various outcomes. Deploying monitoring tools can enable companies to identify suspicious user activities. Detecting such events allows security teams to assess their risks. These can go a long way in improving the security of the e-commerce platforms, as well as eliminating insider risks.
Summary:
Many businesses are quickly transitioning their business operations online using an e-commerce platform as their preferred method to provide their services and products to their clients, globally. Companies can quickly and conveniently access customers from any part of the world. Despite this, the e-commerce platform is high-value targets since attackers can breach and access vast volumes of customer personal information. Customers also use them to make payments, which further provides hackers with increased motivations to attack. Businesses need to prevent these attacks or risk losing customer trust.
CXPORTAL digital team has highly skilled security experts well-versed with how to measure risk and security of e-commerce platforms effectively. If you’d like to know more why not speak to us directly, call us on +442034416513 or visit our website on www.cxportal.com and we’ll help you in any way we can.
Walters Obenson
A dedicated and qualified Enterprise & Solutions Architect at CXPORTAL with nearly two decades of experience delivering cost-effective, agile digital transformations and high-performance technology solutions across diverse industries. Walters combines deep expertise in enterprise architecture, cloud adoption, and AI-driven innovation to design and implement solutions that align technology with business strategy.
