Cybersecurity for E-Commerce The most efficient methods to build robust web sites

Nov 8, 2024
Security requirements and best practices for WooCommerce

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If you have a website especially an e-commerce site, it is your responsibility to make sure that transactions take place securely as well as that the personal details of your clients and customers is not hacked. The database on your WordPress website's database holds personal information such as address information, both electronic and physical addresses details of credit cards as well as transactions logs, as well as different information. You are accountable for the integrity and security of this information.

The data controller is one who chooses the reason to which data is processed and the method by which personal data is processed. When your company determines the purpose and the method through which your personal information should be processed then it's the data controller. Personnel who process personal information in your company are doing this in order to fulfill your obligations as a controller.

An insecure site could put the company's security in jeopardy. What person would be hesitant to put the details of their credit cards to an unsecure website? What harm could it cause to your reputation if the personal information of your customers was taken and then used for illegal motives?

13 major security risks for e-commerce websites

Based on the 2020 Trustwave Global Security Report, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers as well as e-commerce sites are among the most susceptible businesses to cybersecurity threats that account for around 24% of total cybersecurity-related incidents during 2019.

It is the reason to consider the importance of security when it comes to e-commerce sites, find out what threats could affect the online enterprise, as well as what measures e-commerce website administrators must adopt to protect their clients' transactions as well as information.

In order to understand what actions and guidelines that a business owner who is online should follow to protect their websites as well as online shops. We should first be aware of the biggest security threats online stores face.

In light of the Top 10 web application Security Risks that we have created, we've compiled this non-exhaustive checklist of the top security threats that online stores must face today.

OWASP Top Ten for 2021 compared to 2017
OWASP Ten for 2021 (Source: OWASP). 10 in 2021 (Image source: OWASP)

1. Malware and Ransomware

Have a look at our Video Guide for Malware

2. Phishing

A diagram of a phishing attack
Diagram of the Phishing attack (Image of a Phishing attack) (Image Cloudflare)

It's a method of trying to steal sensitive data such as passwords, usernames and number of accounts on credit cards as well as other important data that you can make use of or sell with malicious intent. Most of the time, this type attack happens via spam or other types of fraudulent emails, or instant messages.

Google's phishing warning sign, showing
Google's phishing warning symbol. (Image source: FixMyWP)

3. DDoS attacks

My dashboard analytics showing resource consumption
My dashboard's analytics show the consumption of resources.

4. SQL injection

Example of SQL injection
An illustration for SQL injection (Image source: Cloudflare)

5. Cross-site scripting

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) can be described as an attack where someone embeds malware onto an internet site to run while the website loads. It is executed through the browser of a computer. It is typically created to steal confidential information.

Cross-site scripting attack
What happens when a cross-site scripting attack occurs? (Image source: Cloudflare)

6. Man-in-the-middle attacks

Man-in-the-middle (MitM) (also known as the"on-path" attack is a type of cyberattack where someone places in the middle of two computer systems (such as a browser for web as well as a server for web) aiming to grab information and/or impersonate one or more agents with a malicious motive.

7. Credential stuffing

Credential stuffing scheme
What is credential stuffing. (Image source: Cloudflare)

8. Zero-day exploits

How hackers carry out a zero day attack
What do hackers do to make use of zero-day attacks to attack. (Source: Norton)

9. E-skimming

E-skimming, also known as electronic skimming is the process of putting malicious software onto a store's website to collect details about your payment when you make a purchase. The term is often described as Magecart attacks.

MageCart diagram
An illustration of how a MageCart attack works (Image Source: Sucuri)

10. The attacks of Brute Force

The"brute force attack" is a technique of trial and error that is used to identify important information like API keys, login credentials as well as SSH credentials. If a password has been compromised, it may be used to gain access to additional services when you utilize the same password across different sites. (See credential stuffing.)

11. Backdoors

Backdoors backdoor allow you to bypass any encryption or authentication process to allow you to log in automatically on a site or device. After a site or service is compromised, an attacker may develop their own backdoors in order for accessing your website, access information, or even ruin your site.

12. Social Engineering attacks

social engineering attacks are especially risky since they target the traits of the human character: trust in others and lack of understanding, discomfort when it comes to a violation of order, utilitarianism as well as others. Social engineering involves the manipulation of the mind of individuals to reveal sensitive information like passwords, accounts, or financial data.

Check out our Video Guide To Understand the CSRF attack.

13. Supply Chain Invasions

The majority of the time, in the case of a supply chain breach, the cyber-attacker infiltrates malicious code into a supplier's software, which can then be distributed as an update.

9 tips to ensure the security of your website's e-commerce

Securing a website can be complicated if you're not equipped with the proper equipment and expertise but it's not a job for dedicated engineers. The most important thing is to be aware of vulnerable areas and educate both the employees you employ and yourself about the best practices for securing your e-commerce website from the most common dangers.

The work you need to do is two-fold. On the other hand, you're in charge of securing WordPress as well as WooCommerce, determine who can access the platform, the plugins to be installed as well as the payment gateway the authentication system, as well as all things related to WordPress the platform, its plugins, as well as the maintenance of your theme. It is crucial that you have a secure and modern infrastructure. This is where the quality of your hosting provider will determine the success of your hosting.

1. Choose a cutting-edge hosting infrastructure

The choice of the hosting infrastructure is vital to your site's security brand reputation, and eventually the development of your enterprise. You have several types of hosting options available and they vary in their infrastructure employ as well as the service offered.

  • Shared hosting
  • Host dedicated
  • VPS hosting
  • Cloud hosting
  • Managed WordPress hosting

If you want to have control over the hosting you use, however, you don't possess the most advanced technical expertise and/or resources, you should think about a Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. It is at the midpoint between dedicated and shared hosting. However, the VPS may have a few drawbacks. It could not be able to handle the high traffic levels or fluctuations and it is dependent on the other websites that reside on the server.

HTML0 A cloud-based, managed WordPress hosting solution combines the advantages of both services, by combining the high-speed and secure infrastructure of cloud-based solutions and the ease of having managed WordPress hosting services.

hosting infrastructure and technical stack

Google Cloud regions
Google Cloud Regions (Source: Google)

We've also built an efficient and secure technological stack built around Nginx, MariaDB, PHP 8.3 containers, LXD, and the integration of Cloudflare Enterprise, which provides an additional level of security. It includes firewalls and DDoS security as plus many other features. This stack is available for every client regardless of the plans they have.

     We make use of Linux containers (LXC) and LXD to orchestrate them on to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Google Cloud Platform (GCP) that ensures total isolation of each individual WordPress website. Your website does not connect resources to any other site or other websites that are connected to your account.

A diagram of ’s WordPress Hosting infrastructure
Diagram of the WordPress Hosting infrastructure.

2. Make use of a firewall for web applications

The WAF is essential to your site, regardless of whether you're just starting out as a blogger, or an experienced business owner. In the case of eCommerce websites using an application firewall on your site is essential as a site that's not protected is an easy target for hackers and other malicious criminals.

In the absence of the firewall of a website application, hackers can quickly take over your website modify login credentials, delete or steal information, damage it, and then carry out all kinds of illegal activities. If this happens hackers take over your site, they can destroy the website completely. In addition, your website may be a target for DDoS or other attacks with the force of brute force.

The websites that are hosted by Cloudflare are secured by Cloudflare

Cloudflare waf
How a firewall on web-based applications functions (Image Source: Cloudflare)

3. Create an SSL certificate

SSL certificates for

Cloudflare SSL Certificates are offered without cost to all clients, regardless which plan they decide to use.

Visit our Video Tutorial on Choosing the Correct SSL Certificate to Protect Your Site    

4. Make use of secure SFTP and SSH connections

Setting SFTP protocol in Filezilla
Setting SFTP protocol in Filezilla

It only supports SFTP/SSH connections.

Because SFTP is more secure method, it only works only with an SFTP connection.

The information about SFTP/SSH can be available through Your My Dashboard in the section WordPress Websitesunder Sitename> Environment> Information. Name of the website> Sitename> Environment>> Info.

SFTP environment credentials in My
SFTP account credentials to the environment in My

5. Be sure to use the latest versions of PHP

Every PHP version typically is kept for two years. Only versions that are supported receive improvements in security and performance Therefore, using non-supported PHP versions slows down speed, as well as increase the risk of security vulnerabilities.

From August 2024 onwards The PHP versions officially supported for PHP comprise PHP 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3.

Supported PHP versions
Versions of PHP supported PHP version (Source PHP.net)

     As of the date of this posting at the time of this posting, the majority of PHP versions that date older than 8.1 do not receive security patches. If you're using PHP 8.0 or older, you're vulnerable to security issues that can't be rectified.

Only allow compatible PHP versions

This could require an additional effort to develop when you are using plugins which aren't compatible with the supported PHP versions. However, our main responsibility is to provide the highest security of your website as well as our whole infrastructure. Therefore, we do not permit users to run versions of PHP that do not support the PHP version.

Users can alter their PHP versions of the WordPress site through My. Go to the configuration section and then click Tools in the left menu. Go to the end of the page and discover the PHP engine. Click the Change button and select the PHP version that is appropriate for your site.

Modify PHP engine in My
Change the engine PHP in My

6. Enable two-factor authentication

Using strong passwords to secure your website and hosting account may not be sufficient to protect your online store. Making use of a multi-factor authentication system is strongly advised.

Multi-factor authentication is a system of authorization which requires that the user accessing the account must provide two or more evidence of identity. It can be accomplished employing various methods, such as fingerprints authenticator app, an email, SMS, or a token that can be a device, or a hardware token among other.

Allow 2FA to be enabled with

Additionally, if you are using a secure password to My I'm a Celebrity, we suggest enabling two-factor authentication. Also, you should request all users within your organization to enable this. When 2FA is enabled, the process of logging in to My will require an additional verification number from an authenticator app (e.g., Google Authenticator) using your mobile or a password management application.

To activate 2FA on My, simply click on your name at the top right hand corner, and then select Settings for users. Within My account, go down to the section Two-factor authentication. The toggle button will appear, then look up the QR code within the authenticator app. Enter the six-digit code which can be seen in the app, and click the button to complete.

Two-factor authentication in My
Two-factor authentication in My

It's crucial to remember that 2FA is no longer compatible using SMS-based 2FA because it's vulnerable to attack via phone and offers less security because it's a token tied to time. Recent security breach by Authy disclosed 33 million customer phone numbers, which increased the danger of SMS scams and SIM-swapping.

 no longer supports SMS authentication
cannot be used anymore. SMS authentication via SMS

Create 2FA on WordPress

Additionally, you can enable two-factor authentication on your e-commerce website. WordPress is not able to permit 2FA on its default settings, however, you can quickly and easily integrate the feature on your website using any of the plugins listed below:

Alongside WordPress release core updates, WordPress releases security updates frequently whenever a new vulnerability is identified. Similar is the case with themes and plugins.

For keeping your WordPress website safe You must maintain your entire WordPress site updated to guard against security issues.

Also, you can manage the automated updates for plugins and themes.

Enable/disable automatic plugin updates
Enable/disable automatic plugin updates
Enable/disable automatic plugin updates
Enable/disable automatic plugin updates

If you'd prefer that you don't disable this feature and perform the update yourself, but the process of updating multiple websites could be a lengthy and tiring process. Numerous agencies rely on third-party software that allows the management of updates for each of their WordPress sites from a single external environment.

Users do not need purchase third-party software for managing updates since they have the possibility of updating frequently through My Dashboard.

WordPress Updates with

Update plugins in bulk in My
Update plugins in bulk in My

After you have completed an upgrade using My The system creates a backup is created so you are able to revert the procedure for 2 hours in the case that the update fails. This gives you a sense of safety, as well as protection when you need to update the themes or plugins or plugins.

A system-generated backup is created when you bulk update your plugins
Backups that are generated by the system are created after you have a bulk update of your plugins.

In addition, you are able to run bulk updates for many WordPress websites at a time. Within your My dashboard, navigate to your My dashboard, and then select WordPress websites. There, select any or all of them, and click on the actions button on the left and select the most important action you wish to perform. If you are changing plugins, just click the appropriate menu item. The pop-up window will show an inventory of plugins that have updates available. is available.

Pick the plugins you'd like to update and wait just few minutes. A pop-up will inform you when it was done successfully.

If the update does not succeed in the event it fails to update, visit the name of the site and click on Backups > System-generated page under My and then restore the backup that was created.

System-generated backups in My dashboard
The backups created by the system can be found through My Dashboard

     With this plugin , you'll be able to upgrade themes and plugins across every one of your WordPress websites with ease on a single page, at no cost. Perfect for agencies handling many websites on the same platform.

8. Backups

Web hosting providers that truly cares about the online store it hosts should provide regular WordPress backups. provides six different kinds of backup.

The backup options are six each, which is the total number of options offered by

We offer periodic, automated WordPress backups as well as the system generated backups for every WordPress websites. The backups, in addition to manually-created backups, are available as restore points in My. You can also manually create backups manually offline backup each week.

Daily backups in My
Restoring a backup to a staging area My
Hourly backups in My
You are able to take advantage of six-hour and daily backups in My
External backups in My
It permits integration to be linked to Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage

9. Make sure you are aware of plugins

There are many plugins you can use to your WordPress website. This is especially true in the case of e-commerce. These usually need features not available in WordPress or WooCommerce at the time of initial release. We've compiled a list of plugins we recommend for you to browse and test for yourself.

You should not download the first option that pops up. You should follow a few good practices when choosing the plugins you'll use for your WooCommerce website:

Select plugins that receive regularly scheduled updates from suppliers with a good reputation. Trust the community and check reviews and ratings of other users. Try to avoid, if you can, plugins not reviewed high and are not maintained by unreliable suppliers.

Technical details of the WooCommerce plugin
Information on the technical aspects of the WooCommerce plugin

Test a plugin using a staging setting before putting it into the Production. This prevents compatibility issues between other plugins as well as issues with WordPress core.

Always make backups of your site prior to installing the plugin in production.

Do not install unneeded plug-ins or plugins that provide useless functions. Unnecessary plugins could be a source of security problems and conflict with other plugins, or cause a decrease in site performance.

Find out if there is any known vulnerabilities for it. Use security services like the WordPress Vulnerability Database or WPScan.

So, how do web hosts help to overcome issues with plugins or themes?

security alerts

If a security issue is discovered on one of your plugins or websites, regardless of whether it's a major theme, plugin, or vulnerability, you'll promptly receive an alert in My and an email notifying you about the issue as well as offering solutions to address the problem.

The function is loved by our clients since it permits them to swiftly take actions on security issues that are detected in their sites. If you're a client and you are a client, you'll likely get an email like the following:

An email from  notifying a vulnerability in WooCommerce
A notification email was sent to inform of the user of a problem with WooCommerce

The most effective way to avoid them

In the beginning of this post we've listed a few of the most significant security risks that affect the protection of eCommerce websites. Some of these threats are particularly serious for WordPress/WooCommerce sites.

Although WordPress is open-source software it is worth pointing out that hackers don't attack WordPress websites because of inherent vulnerabilities within the CMS but, they do so due to weaknesses that could have been anticipated and corrected prior to the security issue.

Failure to update the foundation, plugins and theme can make your e-commerce website vulnerable using similar fashion to using passwords that are weak and having no strict security policy for access to your site.

Below is a brief checklist of the threats that exist and ways to ward them off that will assist you in keeping your website secured:

Other features that can help increase the security of your site

Our goal is to deliver the fastest and secure WordPress hosting platform available in the world. We're constantly looking for ways to enhance your security on e-commerce sites to give customers the most enjoyable shopping experience for the customers and your users. Here are some of 's services and features specifically aimed at securing your WordPress/WooCommerce website.

Uptime checks

If your site does not respond or runs slow, what can you do to make sure that it is not down for everyone or just you?

     Your website is scanned every three minutes. It's 480 checks every day.

If your site isn't operating, our techs begin making an immediate effort to fix the problem. There's a good likelihood that the issue can be fixed before you even notice it.

Check out our Video Tutorial on How to determine if a website is down:

The security pledge of the's

However, sometimes, regardless of the effort you put into it, it could be the case that your site is in danger. What to do then?

customers do not have to worry about this as in the event that a WordPress website is compromised when it is hosted by us is able to be repaired by the site owner free of charge look into the problem and fix it.

Our security promise includes:

  • The site's inspection along with a comprehensive analysis of the site's file for malware.
  • Repair of WordPress core using an unclean copy of the Core data files.
  • The elimination and the detection of affected plugins and themes.

Blocking IP

In some cases, it is essential to remove an IP or group of IPs so that you can stop illegal actions from bots, spammers and other players. In general, it is possible to stop IP addresses from the configuration files of your server.

In order to check IP addresses and the amount of requests made it is necessary to sign into My and then go to WordPress websites >> Name of Site > Analytics > Geo & IP.

Top client IPs.
Top IPs for clients.
Add IP addresses to the IP Deny tool in My.
Add IP addresses to the IP Deny tool in My.

Once you have blocked any IP addresses, you'll discover it listed on the identical page.

Add an IP address to deny in My.
Incorporate an IP address into deny in My.

Security certificates

The obligation to guarantee the security of the sites of their clients has been verified and certified at various levels.

The trust service criteria of five are:

  • Security
  • Accessibility
  • Processing integrity
  • Confidentiality
  • Privacy

They provide assurance of safety and security for the web-based store owner who are able to rely on a web hosting provider that permits them to devote their time to work in peace.

ISO/IEC 27001 is the world's most widely-known standard for information security management systems. An ISMS that is implemented in accordance with the standards "is an instrument for cybersecurity, risk management and operational effectiveness."

Conformity with ISO/IEC 27001 means that an business or organization has incorporated the proper system of managing the risks that arise from security of data owned or processed by the business and adheres to all the high requirements and guidelines outlined in this International Standard.

ISO/IEC 270717:2015 provides guidelines on the data security that could be utilized for the provision and use of cloud-based service. It offers

  • further implementation guidance on the proper controls, as defined in ISO/IEC 27002;
  • Additional controls and implementation guidelines specific to cloud-based services.

Final, ISO 27018:2019

Creates common sense control objectives which establishes standards, controls, and objectives which are followed to establish safeguards to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) according to the standards regarding privacy, which are described in ISO/IEC29100 for cloud computing in the public computing environment.

It is possible to visit the Trust Center to get details about the company's continuous compliance initiatives.

Summary

There is a lot to be done to build an e-commerce site. To create your own website will require a significant amount of technological know-how that may not be accessible to smaller companies and young start-ups.

But a business owner who wants to launch an online store, and is willing to accept the difficulties that arise with international markets should not overlook the growth opportunities that online commerce provides. That's why enterprise-level run WordPress and WooCommerce Hosting will aid.

By taking these measures to protect your site secure your online store's website, while decreasing the risk of data breaches and the possibility of downtime.

It's your time to shine. What are the risks and weaknesses you need to face every day? Do you have a hosting company that offers your online site with adequate protection against malicious actors? Share your experience in the comments section below.

Carlo Daniele

Carlo is a passionate fan of front-end Web design and development. He's been experimenting with WordPress for over twenty years. He also works in collaboration with Italian and European colleges and universities. He has written a number of guides and articles on WordPress, published both on Italian and other websites and in printed magazines. The author is also on LinkedIn.

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