With E-Commerce businesses increasingly adopting an expedient custom software development for their applications and web offerings, software for Ecommerce also have transitioned from what they used to be 10 years ago. We all know that the online space especially the online retail space is flourishing and roaring past every single day, with the global eCommerce sales slotted to reach $4.5 trillion by 2021. But with unprecedented success comes risks and unwarranted attention because success attracts cyber-crime. 

With major cyber attacks and data breaches, comes glaring the gaps in online security measures. Any custom software development company will put their mind and brains into ensuring their software doesn’t attract these sophisticated methods employed by cyber-criminals. 

In the digitally driven world, the importance of data knows no bounds. The domain of Artificial Intelligence in custom software development requires data for its various operations. 

Facebook, one of the biggest names in the world of Social media platforms, failed to encrypt passwords for more than 600 million users. Since 2012 the passwords were stored in plain text which was accessible to about 20,000 employees. To us, it was a data breach but to the inadequate application security testing methodology. 

Learning from Facebook’s tale, we all now know that a secure application is extremely important in building credibility among the users. This implies that there are no shortcuts in the security testing application during the custom software development process. As an organisation, if you want your brand value to improve or stay intact then reasonable resources have to be spent and implemented to maintain a fool-proof application strategy for security testing.

The use of emerging technologies has been effectively milked by ECommerce Businesses. When businesses think about increasing their conversion rates, machine learning technology has helped, with search analytics companies have been able to gather deep insights about consumer behaviour. But with ECommerce Businesses becoming sophisticated than ever, it is of utmost importance to ward off the security risks that tag along. In this blog, we intend to explore the different threats that ECommerce Businesses face and how custom software development companies can ensure security to their applications.

Key Data Security threats for Ecommerce Businesses

Malware

 Malware is bits of software created by Cyber-criminals in order to access the software with the intention to damage it. Malware is injected into different web-pages with tools like SQL injection which lets the hackers spoof their identity, fiddle with databases, send nasty emails and gain complete access to computers, data, and networks. Custom software development companies should understand that malware strategies are maturing and becoming advanced so should their anti-virus codes. In order to protect e-businesses against such security threats, a firewall can be installed to audit activities and ensure that clandestine information is not a part of the website. 

Poor Bots

Internet and ECommerce sites are full of bots both good and bad. Bots that are good provide useful results along with other actions. But bad bots are designed to cause harm to your business. They have been developed in the past in a manner that mimes real human workflows so that they behave like real users. In 2018 bots captured 1/5th of the overall ECommerce traffic posing security threats to major e-commerce businesses. 

Custom software development companies can do quite a few things to reduce bad bot activity. The company should ensure that the site features CAPTCHA. With this test, computers and humans can be told apart so that fake accounts register does not occur and access to sensitive data is unsuccessful. Also. data centre traffic can be blocked which is an egregious element in bad bot activity. 

E-skimming

This is yet another hacker method to rob private data like credit card information on ECommerce sites. It is a huge security risk as customers can be misled into clicking external links and portals on their payment page. They can also enter the ECommerce site through a third party with phishing or cross-site scripting. The customer payment information is captured in real-time immediately after the custom accesses the payment page. This can be avoided if the custom software development company has ensured the website is secure and reminds them to check if the payment page is for real or not. 

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

It could be a new thing you’ve heard but its a startling reality. A DDoS attack happens when the server of your site is inundated with requests from several untraceable IP addresses. It is usually triggered when Io T devices are manipulated, leaving your site to go offline and assisting these atrocious attacks. With increasing, sophistication security threats to eCommerce businesses also have picked pace wherein eCommerce websites have undergone a 109% rise in such attacks in 2018. 

Let’s see some threats in numbers

  • About 57% of the companies, in general, have 1000 folders with inconsistent permissions
  • 22% of data leaks that occurred in 2017 had to do with stolen credentials
  • About 27% of the security breaches happen due to human errors
  • Only a mere 3% of the company folder’s are protected which is hardly noticeable
  • 93% of malware comes through email

Reasons you should consider Custom software development to ensure Data Security for ECommerce Businesses

Relying on default measures can be harmful

Most of the times internal software professionals create software for commercial use. There is a lot of assumption that goes in, in the case of security measures. It is a huge blunder to depend on defaults now. 

Custom software development companies provide software for ECommerce companies that address security needs at every level of design and build. With the necessary stages already fixed for the custom software development cycle, companies offering custom software development services ensure that with their latest methodologies they have continuous interactions with the client. They also test and provide bits and pieces of custom software so that any security threats can be levelled against at its roots. Relying on your existing solutions to protect your custom software can be a big mistake. 

Software Development Security Advice

A renowned software development company like Chapter247 establish secure work principles and also ensure to enforce them. The required due-diligence that includes data security techniques assessment is elemental to this process. Custom software development companies do not violate this because and due to this, the trust between the company and the client increases manifold. 

A custom software development company presents a documented Information Security Management System to see to it that the client does not suffer data loss. The IT consulting and strategy team lays stress on the enforcement of this following as an important part of their custom software development process. The drawn-out policies by companies contain the following elements

  1. Fire-walled ingress traffic
  2. Network Password authorisation
  3. Option to login to understand the quality of outbound and inbound traffic
  4. Detection of intruder activity including spam monitoring

Custom software development companies also store all the source codes on the internal servers with a VPN or with private access options. The users can then access only the allotted logins and passwords. For software development companies using cloud services as an important part of their software development, then data breaches are prevented by applying approved encryption algorithms like AES or SHA-256. 

Designing Risk management solutions

To understand the risks involved in custom software development is an event that takes place as an ongoing process. Custom software development companies design risk aversion strategy documents in tandem with the IT department heads of ECommerce companies. This is done as a crucial part of the process only to leave no stone unturned for cyber attackers. When requirements are gathered, identifying and analyzing risks along with strategies are also worked on parallel. 

Concerning risk management, custom software development companies apply forward-thinking approaches. They consider and value domestic IP laws and get set with their crisis management plan in advance and keep evaluating it based on changing scenarios. In order to successfully implement data breach strategies, Chapter247’s security experts make a list of most serious risk threats and then continuously monitor and communicate about these threats. 

The risk mitigation document also includes business continuity policies, security policies, data safety certificates and the manner in which the custom software development companies will handle the IP of the clients. 

Increased involvement in every stage of development will enable you to keep a tab on the activities involved. 

Fluff-free software

If you build the custom software yourself, it would mean relying only on your team who might not bring every skill updated on board. They may build the software but the presence of too many features might spoil the chances of building secure software. A custom software development company ensures that such fluff is avoided at best! Instead of having a cumbersome system that would struggle to leave the available resource, you can create a software that is angular and croons in the backdrop. The presence of such fluff can imperil the system and expose its weaknesses. If you hire a custom software development company like ours, you will have all the security issues addressed without ruining your security. 

Also Read: How to lace security testing in your custom software development cycle

Your involvement matters

Without a doubt, in software development, security will always be a pressing issue. Companies have to laboriously evaluate the security capabilities of the vendor and also make an action plan which must be documented in the contract. Every documentation will matter and the presence of a document will ensure clarity and understanding every obligation. 

Companies also have to involve themselves in the process. A competent software development company like Chapter247 will take all the necessary measures to avoid data loss but companies should always be active involvement in the entire scheme of things. 

Hiring a custom software development solutions provider is perhaps the best solution to ensure data security. For more on this and everything else, contact us today!

 

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