Shopping Cart Security – Secure Hosting and Secure Checkout

Shopping Cart Security – Secure Hosting and Secure Checkout

Everyone knows that you need to lock your house when you go out, set on your car alarm if you have one, run virus protection on your laptop, keep your wallet with you at all times, and avoid unlit areas late at night, so why do so many businesses forget about security for their websites?

Online security is more important than ever. In recent months, hackers have penetrated the networks of some of the most recognised organisations on the planet, with neither government or corporations spared. Here in Australia, one of our leading domain name providers suffered a severe hacking attack that led to their business being acquired by another and domain registrations and renewals crippled for weeks. Security is not just a good idea, it’s crucial.

If you’re running an ecommerce website, think about what’s at stake: your entire business! Our advice is simple – don’t skimp on security or you will be sorry.

Here are some of the things you should be thinking about:

Security of your ecommerce hosting environment

  • Does the hosting provider provide daily backups of your site?
  • What if the data centre’s ISP goes down? Are there multiple points of presence? Do they have backup diesel power generators and battery backup power? Does the data centre keep supplies of diesel fuel nearby?
  • Is the hosting environment PCI DSS compliant? If not, then your business is not PCI DSS compliant if you are accepting credit cards – even if you meet every other business requirement. PCI DSS compliance includes external auditing by a recognised security authority at least every quarter. Your provider should have a current certificate from their auditor to show your bank if they require it
  • What measures does the data centre take to protect security physically? Is there overheating protection? Fire detection? Video surveillance? Is the data centre monitored during business hours or around the clock? Do you have to pay extra for server management?

Security of your shopping cart website

  • If you’re hosting in a secure environment, what about your checkout process. Does the padlock show up when customers log in to the checkout of your site? If not, you’d be well advised to have an SSL Certificate to encrypt the information that’s sent across the Internet. Some payment gateways have a mandatory requirement for SSL on your site in order for their systems to process transactions.
  • Do you have a well protected administrator password? The longer and more complex your password is the better. You should change your password regularly, especially if you have a contractor doing some work for you.
  • Does your shopping cart software include cross site scripting protection? If it is PCI DSS Certified then it will have at the last time they were certified, as that’s a requirement of the compliance. But it’s worth asking your provider just to be sure they are keeping this up to date.
  • How quickly does your provider address security issues when they are queried or raised? How quickly does your provider respond to requests to ban IP addresses or monitor malicious IPs on your behalf?

Ozcart shopping cart website’s cover all of the above – see our ecommerce features page for more information. If you’re starting an online shop make sure you have all of the above covered as well or you will regret it later. Online Security should never be taken lightly.

Ozcart Ecommerce

Ozcart has been in business since 2006 and is an online, hosted shopping cart that you can use for your current or new online store. We offer so many features for the same low price. In fact, we are addicted to adding new ones to ensure that we remain one of the best choices for a shopping cart. https://ozcart.com

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