eCommerce: 3 Tips to Maintain a Safe & Secure Checkout

eCommerce: 3 Tips to Maintain a Safe & Secure Checkout

It’s estimated that 80% of annual online sales occur in the4 weeks between Black Friday and the weekend before Christmas. Not surprisingly, those same 4 weeks are the biggest weeks for scams and spam. It doesn’t take a genius to see the correlation here. That is why it is imperative that your site’s shopping cart and checkout are secure – the last thing you need is a data breach (it just may be the last thing your company gets). Here are three tips for maintaining a safe, secure checkout on your website.

1. Make sure your entire eCommerce rig is up to date

At Bridgeline, we make sure we keep up with the latest server updates, patches, security protocols, and antivirus countermeasures to make sure our eCommerce customers (and their users) have a safe and happy holiday. But if your shopping experience isn’t from Bridgeline Digital, use a secure checkout system from a reliable provider and be sure to frequently scan all your web applications with multiple tools. There are plenty of free web application scanners that will report potential risks and vulnerabilities.

2. Emphasize to your customers you don’t send emails with attachments

Customers are savvy these days, but traditionally speaking, this is one of the most prevalent ways spammers/scammers introduce malware to a consumer’s hard drive…by pretending to be merchants just like you.

3. Make a note about the fact that you NEVER ask for personal or billing info in email

Phishing scams attempt to look just like your standard communication to your customers, and often hook victims in by reporting password (or other personal information) errors and expirations.

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