Do you think your eCommerce site could be at risk from a cyber attack? The idea that hackers break into systems for fun is firmly in the past. Today, they’re a serious threat to businesses and their customers. Almost two thirds of victimised companies are forced out of business within just six months of an attack, unable to cope with the severity and the frequency with which they can occur due to their weaknesses in online security. Do you want to add to this statistic?
If you’re worried that you might not be as protected as you could be, there are a few sure-fire ways to tell if you’re at risk. Here are the top three ways to test your vulnerabilities:
1. Perform a Site Scan
This is the simplest way of analysing how strong your defences are against hackers. Although you can buy basic anti-virus software packages, these are often not sufficient for a business with a lot more applications in use by multiple users.
Performing a simple scan of your whole computer is the first step towards testing how vulnerable you are, as it will give an indication of the number of viruses your computer has detected, and how many trojans your anti-virus software has protected you from.
2. Perform a Website Assessment
If your scan suggests you may be having problems with hackers, moving on to a full assessment of your website and its applications is the next step, and this can be done manually by checking for certain criteria. These include:
- Does the site have a database of sensitive information, and if so, does it run on the same server as the website?
- Are these sensitive records encrypted and does the site have SSL certification for encrypted transactions?
- Which areas of the site are password protected?
You can find further criteria and more details on how to perform these manual assessments here.
3. Perform a Penetration Test
Penetrations tests are the most useful kind against hackers, but you’ll most likely need to hire in an expert for this, to receive professional advice on improving your security which is tailored to your eCommerce offering. Companies like Nettitude are experienced in cyber penetration tests, helping to expose your company weaknesses as well as helping you to fix them. They will also include reports and full security audits as part of their offering, so it’s worth contacting them for a free consultation to find out exactly how they can help you.
Takeaway
Always treat the tests as your general health checkup that showing the “health” of your eCommerce security. Once you get the reports, make sure that you take action based on them. Remember, prevention is always better than fixing things out – so consider to do regular security checkup, data backup and threat cleanup.
