Online retailers currently deal with around 206,000 attacks on their stores each month. As the popularity of online shopping grows, so does the opportunity for cybercriminals and unscrupulous consumers to scam online businesses. If you own or operate an online store, you must protect yourself against fraudsters who steal from you, wreck your online reputation, alienate your customers, damage your brand, and hurt your profits. This comprehensive guide tells you everything you need to know about eCommerce fraudulent transaction statistics —what it is, how it works, and what you must do today to protect your online store from the growing threat of online fraud.
Conduct regular site security audits.
Want to discover flaws in your security before criminals and fraudsters do? Conduct security audits—often. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are our shopping-cart software and plugins up-to-date?
- Is our SSL certificate current and working?
- Is our store PCI-DSS compliant (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)?
- Are we backing up our online store often enough?
- Are we using strong passwords for admin accounts, hosting dashboards, CMS, database, and FTP access?
- Or are we scanning our website regularly for malware?
- Are we encrypting communication between our store and our customers and suppliers?
- Have we removed inactive plugins?
Make sure your store is PCI compliant.
If you operate an online store that accepts credit card payments, you must be PCI compliant. PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. It standards for compliance are developed and managed by the PCI Security Standards Council to ensure the security of credit card transactions in the payments industry. PCI compliance means your online store and your business processes meet these PCI standards. If you operate a SaaS-based eCommerce store, your platform will typically provide this compliance.
Monitor your site regularly for suspicious activity.
Bricks-and-mortar stores hire fraud prevention officers to catch shoplifters. You can protect your online store against fraudulent transactions by monitoring your store for suspicious activity. Monitor your accounts and transactions for red flags such as inconsistent billing and shipping information; as well as the physical location of your customers. Use tools that track customer IP addresses and alert you to any addresses from countries known as a base for fraudsters.
Use an Address Verification Service (AVS).
Credit card processors and issuing banks will usually offer an Address Verification Service to detect suspicious credit card transactions in real-time and prevent credit card fraud. The Address Verification Service checks the billing address submitted by the card user (the customer) with the cardholder’s billing address that’s on file with the issuing bank. This check takes place as part of the merchant’s request to the payment processor for authorization of the credit card transaction. When addresses don’t match, the system either declines the transaction or flags it for investigation.
Require Card Verification Value (CVV) numbers for all purchases.
The three-digit security code on the back of VISA®, MasterCard® and Discover® credit and debit cards and the four-digit security code on the back of American Express® credit and debit cards is called the Card Verification Value (CVV) or Card Security Code (CSC). By requiring all purchasers to supply this code for every transaction, you ensure that customers have the physical credit card in their possession. This helps to keep you safe and reduces fraud.
Use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS).
HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, which is the primary protocol used to send data between a customer’s web browser (like google) and your online store. HTTPS encrypts this data to protect sensitive information, such as customer names, addresses and credit card numbers. Using HTTPS prevents your online store from having its transactions broadcast in a way that’s easily viewed by hackers, cybercriminals, and fraudsters. You use HTTPS by buying an SSL certificate.
Conclusion
Yes, fraudsters are getting more sophisticated in how they attack online merchants. And the number of attacks on web stores is increasing as eCommerce grows in popularity. But eCommerce merchants are also getting more sophisticated in how they detect and deter online crooks.
Once you understand what eCommerce fraud is and why it is so prevalent, and once you learn how to detect online fraud, you are empowered to take the necessary steps to prevent fraud on your online store. In case you are looking for an app solution to deal with fraudulent eCommerce transaction statistics, check out Atom8 for a reference. Rather than having your employees to track the system all the time, let Atom8 do it for you.
This app has the function of notifying when there are any potential fraud orders; such as unexpectedly large orders or domain issues. You will technically relieve the burden on your people’s shoulders and have more time to focus on more important tasks. This will be a very promising solution for any store.
