How To Protect Customers’ Information On Your eCommerce Store

The trend of eCommerce users searching for platforms to purchase products on their devices is increasing rapidly. As a result, the number of customer queries has also risen significantly, and any customer can access the businesses run online. 

To protect customers’ information and your brand reputation, you must follow the best practices when managing customers’ personal information online. If you fail to do so, you’re exposing yourself to cybersecurity risks which in turn may cause issues, losing your online clients and affecting your brand reputation.  

So, here’s a five-item list of how to safeguard the data of your customers in your online store:

1. Develop A Data Disaster Recovery Plan 

Data loss can be caused by human error, natural disasters, hardware failure, or software issues. Even if you have mild backups for all your data, you cannot guarantee everything will be recoverable if something goes wrong. With this, every online business should have an emergency plan to protect its data from disaster.

Here are three tips to help you develop and implement a data disaster recovery plan: 

• Identify All Types Of Data: In your eCommerce store, ensure you identify all types of data and know where you store them. For instance, if you use an external provider for storage, get their specifications for securing the data and test them out before disaster strikes.
• Secure Multiple Backups Of All Your Files: Your internal IT team should ensure you have multiple backups in different locations. If you don’t have an internal IT team, consider outsourcing a third-party provider to ensure you have a backup in case of a data disaster. You can visit this cyber security company in NYC.
• Create Procedures: Another step to take is to create procedures for responding to emergencies like natural disasters or social media attacks on your website. These responses may include notifying your customers and providing real-time updates on the status of your website during its downtime. This also involves disabling the site until your team resolves the cyber issue to avoid losing more customer information. 

A data disaster recovery plan is vital so you can prevent cybercriminals from accessing confidential client data. Therefore, you must consider these three steps as you establish this plan and ensure that your transactions will continue operating despite system downtime.

2. Always Update Software Patches 

The latest software patches will help close security holes that hackers can use to gain access to your system. Installing these updates makes it easier to spot vulnerabilities as they occur and take action quickly. Aside from this, you can also take advantage of the latest security features integrated into new versions. 

To ensure that you’re regularly updating software patches, you must keep track of real-time updates by turning on notifications. However, don’t wait until a patch is released. Instead, start monitoring for vulnerabilities at least a month before an expected release date. Additionally, ensure that your partner cyber security company in Sacramento Executech or your area has a process for testing patches before deploying them across all systems.

3. Enable SSL Encryption 

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption protects your customers from hackers who try to steal their personal information over the internet. This protection can secure the connection between a web browser and the server that’s hosting the website. With this, you can prevent cybercriminals from intercepting information as they’ll have to go through the SSL authentication process. 

To enable SSL encryption on your online store, you should find out if your hosting provider supports Hypertext Transfer Protocols (HTTP) connections. Doing so will help protect customers’ information as it travels between their web browser and your web server. If they do, download the appropriate certificate file from your provider and upload it to your server to ensure secure transactions. 

4. Secure Payment Gateways 

The most obvious way to protect customer data is to use secure payment gateways that encrypt credit card information. This means that if someone were to steal your customer data, they wouldn’t be able to use it unless they had the encryption key. Therefore, always use a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) certified payment gateway to accept credit cards online without being open to fraud. In addition, all transactions must go through HTTP to help encrypt the data transmission between your website and your customer’s devices. You should also explore terms like tokenization vs encryption when you want to hide and disguise sensitive card data.

5. Develop A Privacy Policy 

Make sure you have a privacy policy that clearly explains what you do with the information you collect from your customers. In doing so, you can help ensure that customers know how their data is used and who has access to it. As a result, you can build trust with your customers, which is vital for any business. For instance, if you require credit card information from your customers, ensure they know how you’ll store their data. Thus, you must include whether or not you’ll share these details with third parties like advertising companies. This strategy gives your consumers the confidence that nothing wrong will happen to their information if they purchase with your eCommerce store. 

Key Takeaway 

Running a digital store can leave you vulnerable to cybercriminals, especially if you don’t have the proper cybersecurity protocols. That said, consider these tips to protect the information of your online buyers. Once you do so, you can keep hackers from accessing sensitive data and implement a positive image of your brand.