Malicious Activities from Online Shopping that Threats your Cart

 

Online shopping stores have made shopping a lot easier for customers. One can buy almost anything sitting in their bed. The prices are competitive, the products are genuine, and to top it all, there are oceans of exciting offers and sales during the festive period. Famous e-commerce websites like Amazon, Desertcart have all their privacy protected. Why go to a store and wait in a long line when, with a few taps of our finger, we can have the same product shipped right to our door in a day or two?

Online shopping is extremely convenient. But here’s the catch. If we didn’t take any proper precautions, it can also be extremely dangerous to users. Shopping online is increasingly popular. But how safe are transactions on the internet? Is there a protection shield for credit cards? How well-built is online shopping security? How secure is online shopping? Let’s find out…

 

Threats of shopping online:

 

Here are some must-know factors for securely shopping online.

1.     BOT: Every time we make an order or purchase over the internet, we are potentially opening the gates Bots. Even though bots can sometimes be helpful in the start and end development of our website, they can be a serious threat to online safety. Even, some bots can infect our online shop and scrape it for inventory and pricing information. The hackers behind these bots will use more detailed information to alter the pricing and availability of our online store. They can block our shopping carts by adding multiple products from different IP’s. This prevents us from buying the products as they will only see that it is out of stock.

 

2.     MALWARE: It is a term used to describe a malicious program made by hackers to automatically do harm to a website or domain. These include online shops, as they have their own set of vulnerabilities. These are the most common types of online security threats. The very common thing about malware is that they are fully automatic. They install and run on their own, which is why there is no brute to fight them. The only way for us to keep our online shop safe from malware is by updating our site regularly.

 

3.     PHISHING: It is a hacking tool where anonymous will use our website to present itself as a legitimate business. They will mail one of your potential or clients and suggest a business deal. If the potential or client doesn’t go the extra mile to check up with you about the deal, they will inevitably fall into a trap. They will most likely give the hackers main information that is bound to do them harm. The only solution to deal with this is to always double-check.

 

4.     FINANCIAL FRAUD: Online shopping security concerns old as the online shopping industry. Ever since it was conceived, people tried and sometimes succeeded in online shops. Either through unauthorized transactions, fake returns or misrepresentation they manage to swindle online shops and hurt their income.

 

5.     DATA BREACH: Ecommerce platforms allow users to purchase anything online by entering their personal details and credit card information. Such data is the treasure hunt for hackers and cybercriminals. One of the foremost security concerns for e-commerce platforms is that if not taken proper measures or remedies they have higher chances of data breaches which might have a great impact on safe and secure online shopping.

 

6.     FRAUDULENT PURCHASE: Online shopping and security should not be seen as two different terms. Another security concern that revolves around e-commerce platforms is fraudulent purchases. With the ease of credit cards to purchase items, most of the time businesses fail to identify if the credit card belongs to the authorized person only or not which enhances internet security during online shopping. Fraudulent often use stolen cards to buy items that later on lead to chargebacks.

 

7.     Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: The attack of our website’s servers being flooded with requests from potentially millions of untraceable IP addresses. Often driven by the manipulation of IoT devices, today's more sophisticated attacks can cause our entire site to go offline mode, leaving it wide open to more severe attacks, DDoS infection attacks the frequency of these security threats to e-businesses is on the rise, particularly during peak sales periods. This security threat can cost our business thousands in loss and compensation paid to ourselves and mitigation. However, damage done by DDoS attacks is often reputational leads to losing customers' trust and confidence.

 

8.     BRUTE FORCE ATTACKS: Brute force attacks are one of the major threats of online shopping. Mainly targets an online store admin panel. They figure out and decode the password and gain access, the directness of the attack makes it brute-force. After using specific software to connect or gain access to a site. Using code devour programs to crack passwords by using every possible combination imaginable.

 

9.     SQL injection: This is one of the security features of online shopping. It is generally regarded as the most common form of threat in online shopping. SQL injection attacks involve hackers gaining access to our own e-commerce site by injecting malicious SQL commands into existing scripts that our site needs to operate. Once successfully uploaded the command the site allows the hacker to execute certain commands on our site or shut it down at will.

 

10.                        BANDWIDTH CHOKING: It is a crucial resource for any ecommerce site, especially during peak sale hours. These little bots, more in numbers, create a spike in user traffic. This spike can also slow down things a bit and is also recognized as one of the many e-commerce security threats for the modern era. Slow performance of the site can ward off potential buyers thus creating a huge loss in revenue.

 

Report malicious activities that you face while shopping online immediately. Share these online attacks with your friends and save them from malicious attacks. The next time when you shop online, be aware of these points and save your money.