With the holiday spirit on a high, it is the season for shopping.
Online shopping has taken over as the preferred method of shopping due to a change in consumer behavior. Since more and more people are choosing to shop online, businesses are shifting to online retailing to take advantage of the opportunity. However, this has also given a chance to cyber criminals to exploit vulnerabilities and trick users into fraud.
Given the rising cyber threats, here is a list of cyber security challenges online retailers need to be aware of this holiday season:
- Botnet Attacks: A botnet attack is an attack where a large number of internet-connected devices are infected by malware and are then used to launch cyber attacks as a bot network. Botnet attacks against online retailers or e-commerce sites usually involve advanced bots to bypass their cyber security system. An advanced bot is trained to imitate human behavior when accessing a browser. One of the most common forms of botnet attacks is Traffic Overload or DDoS attack. A large network of bots sends multiple redundant requests to the server of the online retailer site to cause traffic overload. As a result, the server is not able to receive requests from the customers resulting in Distributed Denial of Service. These attacks are majorly used to disrupt the business during peak shopping season.
- Unauthorized Account Access: These attacks rely on credential theft to access users’ or retailers’ accounts. User accounts typically include gift cards, discount vouchers, and stored financial information such as credit card details. While this can result in financial loss for users, threat actors can also target retailers using intercepted user accounts. They can make fraudulent purchases using merchants’ simple financing options over the holiday season.
- Malware/ Ransomware: As the holiday season is a busy time of the year for retailers, cybercriminals try to disrupt operations by installing malware or ransomware. Attackers may exploit vulnerabilities in the code or may run a social engineering attack to hack into the system.
- Redirection Attacks: Cybercriminals analyze online retailer websites to find vulnerabilities they can exploit. Once they find a vulnerability, they utilize this chance to insert malicious code injections. These codes are generally added to the payment page of the website. When a user clicks on this malicious code, he is redirected to a fake website that is built to mimic the original payments page. The user is requested to provide financial details to make the payment & finalize his purchase. These details are sent by the server to a threat actor who can use it for financial or credential theft.
Online retailers need to be cautious to prevent these attacks. Common preventive measures include installing regular updates to patch vulnerabilities, implementing access management strategies, promoting multi-factor authentication for user accounts, etc.
To know more about cyber security challenges for online retailers, contact Centex Technologies. You can contact Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 – 4740, Dallas (972) 375 – 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 – 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.