According to the Global Security Report for 2020 from Trustwave. The industry most frequently attacked by cyberattacks was retail. Today’s online retailers should be very concerned about data security, primarily if they don’t use a software-as-a-service e-commerce platform. Hackers typically utilize a variety of nefarious ways to target the administrators, customers, and staff of e-commerce stores.

In the last ten years, there have been numerous high-profile retail attacks. You might recall the 2013 Target data breach, which exposed the payment information for 40 million customers. Then, in 2014, Home Depot revealed that 56 million credit cards had been compromised. Information from 150 million users of the MyFitnessPal app from Under Armour was compromised in 2018.

You can argue that hackers do not target small and medium-sized enterprises because you don’t hear about such attacks as frequently as larger companies. But just because a company is small doesn’t mean it isn’t a target. Their attacks are more than just noteworthy enough to be reported on by major media. However, this does not imply that the owners’ loss has been mitigated.

5  Typical E-commerce Data Breach Types

1. Spamming: Infected links can be sent through email or social media inboxes by some dishonest actors. Additionally, they can include these URLs in blog comments, messages, and contact form submissions. If you click these links, they will send you to their spam websites, where you could become a victim.
2. Phishing: There have been allegations of customers of several e-commerce stores receiving emails or texts from hackers posing as real store owners. These con artists employ false versions of your website pages or those of another well-known website to con users into believing they are who they claim to be.
3. DoS and DDoS attacks: Due to DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) assaults, many e-commerce websites have suffered losses in their website and overall sales. Your servers break down because of a flood of requests from numerous untraceable IP addresses, rendering your store’s website unavailable to customers.
4. Brute force: Hackers can attempt to break your password by attacking your admin panel with brute force. These malicious programs establish a connection to your website and attempt thousands of different password combinations.
5. Malware: Hackers may create harmful software without your awareness and install it on your computer and IT systems. Spyware, viruses, trojans, and ransomware are some of these dangerous applications. Trojan Horses may have been downloaded onto the systems of your clients, administrators, and other users. These programs can instantly steal any private information that could be on infected systems, and they might potentially infect your website.

As e-commerce expands, work gets more mobile and virtual. Therefore, we must secure our communication and transaction channels. This will be an excellent time to schedule a free consultation if your e-commerce website has already been compromised or you want to learn more about securing your systems.