Table of Contents
Introduction
An online store is vulnerable to the potential dangers of ecommerce as long as it is exposed to security risks. An online retailer risks losing money, personal information, or their entire business to these threats. In addition, cybercriminals and the general public are stealing money through phishing attacks and unnecessary ad placement in e-commerce issues.
Retailers and their merchandising teams face many challenges due to bots and fraudulent users, which account for around a third of all e-commerce traffic. It leads to fraudulent leads, items that sell out seconds before genuine buyers have a chance to purchase the goods, and misalignment of marketing metrics due to bot traffic.
This article focuses on some of the most common pitfalls eCommerce marketers face today and offers recommendations on how to deal with them.
Browser Hijacking
Malicious individuals can post calls to action that look legal but are destructive links. Clicking on the link will download the unwanted virus. Therefore, users’ data and personal information are exposed to hackers.
Scammers go great distances to make their malicious links legitimate enough for you to click on. They often resemble a retail establishment and offer significant discounts or attractive offers. It could hurt customer loyalty and trust.
Solution
Customers expect retailers to confirm the legitimacy of all website advertisements and pop-ups. In addition, if they work with affiliates, they must explicitly inform those partners what type of advertisements they will and will not accept.
A retailer can tell the platform where the problem was found if he sees other sellers competing under his company name. The links also seem to point to unlikely sources. Regarding advertising, it can range from Google Ads to LinkedIn Ads to Facebook Ads.
An SQL Injection Exploit
SQL injection is one of the most communal security threats in e-commerce. A SQL injection attack occurs when a hacker injects malicious code into a database. This code can access private information such as credit card numbers. As an effect of SQL injection attacks, it is possible that data is lost or control of the database is taken.
For example, a hacker can access the credit card information of every customer who has ever purchased from an online business by entering malicious code into the database. This information can be use several ways to create false claims or sell it illegally.
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Solution
To mitigate SQL injection vulnerabilities, you should use input validation and parameterized lookups with prepared statements. Also, single quotes and other potentially dangerous pieces of code should be remove. Finally, it’s a good idea to disable the display of database errors on your live website. You can gain insight into your company’s database by exploiting database vulnerabilities with SQL injection.
Deceitful Representation
Typically, bots and malicious users are the most common culprits regarding misrepresentations. Information manipulated to make it appear that an individual has characteristics other than your own is not the same as simply using a private browser or proxy.
A malicious bot or criminal can use deceptive impersonation to impersonate an actual customer on an e-commerce site. It makes them more challenging to identify when browsing a website and can commit fraud.
Solution
Due to the nature of misrepresentations, they can be difficult for the untrained eye to discern. Finding them in real-time often requires IT and cybersecurity solutions. In addition, users can be track or blocked from returning to a particular website if they engage in fraudulent behavior while hiding their true identity behind misrepresentations.
Fraud with Credit Cards
Computers and real people commit credit card fraud. However, if an unauthorized attacker acquires the credit card and uses it to purchase on a particular website, the actual cardholder can dispute the charge. It’s suitable for the end user but not for e-commerce. Supplies lost without compensation are permanently lost. For example, suppose a computer makes many large purchases on a website using a fraudulent credit card. In such a case, you incur costs to the business, and you use inventory to pay customers.
Solution
Make sure your POS system is secure first. Precautions can also taken to ensure product security to prevent fraud from leading to a significant loss of revenue. In addition, you can prevent future transactions from malicious people.
Conclusion
Various cyber attacks can take place on an e-commerce site. For this reason, the first step in preventing harmful and illegal activities is to educate people about the dangers they face. In addition, monitoring user behavior, validating customer IDs, and detecting unusual behavior are effective ways to combat this problem. Also, early detection of a security issue is critical to take precautionary measures.
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