As explained earlier, two of the most talked about security
issues on the World Wide Web today are customer identity theft
and the risk of using a credit card online. Below is a list
of techniques used by e-commerce businesses in order to keep
this information as safe and secure as possible.
Identity Theft:
The lists of items below are some of the important techniques
that e-commerce websites use in order to protect a customer's
personal identity.
- Always encrypt customer information when it is sent over
the web. Some e-commerce websites explain how they take
extra precautions and encrypt all the personal customer
information and credit card information when it is stored
in a website database.
- This customer information includes: name, telephone, mailing
address, password, username, credit card information and
other personal customer information.
- Firewalls and other network security tools are used on
web servers in order to keep data that is accessible to
the web as safe and secure as possible
- As discussed earlier companies should research and use
all of the new and existing security software and tools
that are available in order to keep data safe for storage
and when it is sent over the web. These include: https,
SSL, encryption, firewalls, etc...
- When building an e-commerce website that will use customer
information and credit cards you should always research
the history of how previous attacks have been performed.
This will let you know how to defend yourself from those
same kinds of attacks. Examples of these previous attacks
are posted on many websites so make sure you are aware of
them in order to make your website programs as secure as
possible.
Credit Card Information
The most talked about and biggest security concern for the
online shopper is their credit card information. The best
way to make a customer on your e-commerce website feel secure
is to inform them of what security tools and techniques you
are using. Below is a list of ways to make a customer feel
secure about using their credit card on your website.
- Give the customer a feeling of comfort by informing them
of your privacy policy, your contact information, and what
security tools your website is using. Always make this information
easy to find on your website.
- Step the customer through the checkout process and give
them information on how the security for each data field
will be handled.
- Always validate and check for valid credit card information.
This is done in many different ways. Below is a link that
explains how to do this in full detail.
- Always check and validate all the customer, and other
information that is input into the system by the user.
- Again always use encryption, SSL and https when credit
card information is input by the user.
- Most small online businesses don't store customer credit
card information. Let the merchant account and banking software
do the credit card validation and transactions. This makes
it easy for small online businesses because they don't
have to store any customer credit card information
which is a big risk if an attack happens on their web server.
Here is a
that explains in detail how online credit cards work and what
security software and other tools you need in order to do
a secure online credit card transaction. This website is very
helpful because it explains every step that is taken when
a credit card is used online. It also explains in detail how
you set up things like merchant accounts, banking software,
what security tools you need to use, how you get your money
and how the customer gets charged, what data you need to validate
and get from the customer, and all the things that would work
best for your type of online business.
Other links are posted below that explain some more important
information about e-commerce security and other e-commerce
tools that are used by websites today!
Links:
Accepting credit cards and getting a merchant
account:
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL):
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure
Socket Layer):
Encryption:
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