Security breaches are on a constant rise and despite all the time and effort you may have invested into providing a maximum level of security for your users, your website may still be vulnerable to hacking attacks.

This is especially the case with e-commerce websites, which are a frequent target of fraudulent activities for obvious reasons – these websites contain a valuable amount of users’ personal and financial data.

There are many ways to improve a website’s security and this should remain every company’s focus, regardless of its business area.

However, the chances of becoming a hackers’ target grow with every passing day and every new breach, which is why companies need to be ready to react on time if an unwanted attack occurs.

To handle a security breach quickly and efficiently, you must first understand some basic steps you would be expected to take in case your website gets hacked.

Contact your web host

Once you notice a suspicious behavior on your website, you should first notify your web host and ask them to check for potential issues. This way, you enable your host to make sure no other users’ data is affected, especially if your website is hosted on a shared platform.

Shut down your website

Shutting down your website would prevent users to access their accounts and potentially disclose their personal information to hackers. Additionally, the hackers would also be prevented from further sniffing around your data.

Change all the passwords

Upon shutting down your website, you should change passwords for all the accounts used to manage it – FTP,  cPanel, MySQL, etc.

Check data logs for unusual activities

By examining the most recent access logs, you may be able to determine how the attack was carried out and understand whether your website was its actual target.

Fix the issue

If neither your internal team nor your host is able to determine the nature of the attack, you should seek out the help from an external security expert. After you identify the cause of the attack, you would be able to fix the vulnerability and run your website again.

Identify possible damage and notify compromised users

As soon as you identify the affected data, notify your users about the breach and ask them to change their passwords. Make sure you only contact the users that have been affected instead of sending emails to everybody.

The digital omnipresence every company strives to achieve certainly requires a strategy for handling security breaches. In smaller companies or those that just started expanding their user base, such strategies are often put on hold because most of the time is invested in securing the database.

Even when hosted on reputable servers, majority of websites are still vulnerable to breaches, especially as hacking methods develop to keep the pace with the advent of computing technologies. Therefore, a detailed security breach strategy should be a part of every company’s marketing plan because it may eventually turn out to be the best way to keep the customers.

If you have any concerns about your existing eCommerce store, get in contact with our friendly Tech Support team via Live Chat or the Support Desk.