ECOMMERCE AND ONLINE BUSINESS: HERE'S WHY YOU NEED CYBER SECURITY
E-commerce has many advantages for entrepreneurs. However, running an online business presents some very serious cyber risks.
First, your online activity is the preferred target of hackers, cyber criminals who wish to harm both you and your customers. To counter these threats, the only way is to invest in IT security.
Indeed, there are some reasons why online companies should pay close attention to their cyber defences.
1) When your entire business is online, a hacker attack will damage your entire business.
According to statistics, Around 30,000 websites are hacked every day.
Many businesses think they are of no interest to a cybercriminal, but this is not the case. The victims of cyber attacks are very often poorly defended small and medium-sized enterprises and insufficiently protected e-commerce companies whose data can be stolen.
If you get hacked you should prepare for the worst, even to ransom demands to regain control of your site or not to publish the sensitive data of your customers.
2) By law, you must adequately protect the data of customers who buy online, otherwise you risk severe fines.
Many cybercriminals target sensitive customer data such as names, credit card numbers, street addresses and more.
For what reason? To sell them to the highest bidder on the dark web. The stolen data will then be used for identity theft and other forms of fraud. Your customers could face scams or thefts worth thousands of euros.
And if a lawsuit is filed against your company because it failed to protect sensitive data, you will have to answer in court (even if you were the victim of the attack) and risk fines of up to 4% of your turnover.
3) The reputation of an online company is even more important to defend than that of a physical shop.
The damage caused by a cybercriminal does not end with destroyed or stolen data. In many cases, the negative impacts can last for years. A successful cyber attack against your company can devastate your reputation.
Every article about the attack creates bad publicity and paints your company as an unsafe place to buy.
If the customers of your website feel in danger of leaving their details with you because they have read about credit card fraud or attacks on their email, they will no longer buy from you, the risk is too great.
So how can we defend ourselves? The only way is prevention: making sure that such events cannot happen. And if you really can't defend yourself, it is just as important to be insured against the financial damage resulting from a cyber attack.
The IT security of your online business must be a priority; otherwise, the repercussions for you and your customers can be very serious.
If you want protection and insurance for cyber risks, you can sign up for our Cyberangels platform, dedicated entirely to cyber protection for small and medium-sized enterprises.
