5 Tips to Stay Vigilant Against Attackers this Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping event is finally here. Guess what? You’re not alone in preparing for the big day, the hackers are too. Online shoppers and business owners are lucrative targets for cybercriminals during this massive online sale.  

Are you worried about cyber-attacks ruining your business during this holiday season? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here is a checklist of the essential tips and tricks to secure your business from malicious attacks.  

1. Test your Functionality 

Your website’s performance is crucial throughout the year, but even more during the sale season. A slow website could disappoint your customers and significantly reduce your profits. Here are some factors you must review to ensure your website doesn’t slow down:  

• Traffic Volume – Sales can cause an unpredictable surge in the traffic to your website and strain your resources. Make sure that your hosting provider can accommodate the bandwidth required for such events. In addition, monitor your traffic continuously to detect any suspicious activity. 

• File Types and Size – Typically, larger files take longer to load and increase your site’s load time. Optimize your file sizes and formats to ensure that they are as lean as possible.

• Plugins – Too many plugins and unoptimized plugins can slow your website down. Some plugins require a lot of assets to load and can increase your load time. 

• Web Hosting - If your host server is sluggish or does not have adequate resources to support your website, it can majorly impact your website speed. Review your hosting company and upgrade to a better host if proper requirements are not met. 

• CDN (Content Delivery Network) – A secure CDN drastically reduces the strain on hosting bandwidth and enables the faster distribution of content across different locations. It also prevents any interruptions in service and improves security.

Test your website’s speed and functionality before you launch the sale to ensure that your customers have a seamless shopping experience. 

2. Protect Your Cloud Infrastructure

The demand for cloud service providers triples during sale times like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, 60% of consumers have said that they plan to do all of their holiday shopping online. To meet the demands of customers, more and more companies are now utilizing cloud services. Here are the risks you need to be aware of when it comes to protecting your cloud infrastructure:  

• Security Misconfigurations – The rapid adoption of new cloud services can increase the instances of security misconfigurations, which is one of the most common and exploitable cloud security threats.

• Data Collection and Storage – Some businesses store more data than necessary, such as payment information and sensitive data like card details. Cloud environments make it extremely easy for internal and external parties to access the data stored in them. This is a major advantage for the hackers who are looking to attack your system. 

• Access Management –Minimize accidental data exposure by ensuring only authorized personnel have access to critical information. 

Further, leverage a cloud-based application security solution like Indusface WAAP to monitor and protect your cloud infrastructure from cyberattacks. 

3. Double-check Your SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are crucial to secure your eCommerce websites as they encrypt the data that is transferred between the users and websites. They secure sensitive information such as login credentials, credit card transactions, and personal information including names and addresses.   

An expired SSL certificate is not something you need before a huge Cyber Monday sale. If your SSL certificate is outdated, your website may be unavailable to users or will no longer show the “HTTPS” sign. This can dramatically impact your sales as customers are always encouraged to shop only from secure websites.  

If you don’t have an SSL certificate yet, choose a reputable SSL vendor. If you’re already using one, verify that it is still valid and has not been compromised and made vulnerable to attacks.  

4. Be Cyber Aware 

If you don’t know how cybercriminals operate, you won’t be able to effectively secure your assets against them. Stay informed on the latest technology used by hackers and the industry-specific cyber threats your business faces. For instance, if you have a retail business, you must know that retailers were the fourth-most targeted industry by attackers in 2020.  Retail fraud, retail phishing scams, and card details theft are a few common industry-specific threats for retailers. 

Attackers are also known to target small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have appropriate security measures in place. So, if you’re a small business, you must be extra cautious about being attacked. Plan a security strategy to defend against these specific threats.  

5. Proactive Security is Better Than Reactive Security 

You should always assume that you could be the next target for a hacker. Dealing with a security violation becomes easier if you already have a safety/security plan in place. Many businesses are caught unprepared in a hack and end up losing more resources than they would have if they had a plan. 

Develop a contingency plan with the worst-case scenario in mind.  

And finally, don’t forget to do a quick last-minute check of these basic security requirements: 

• Backup all your data and keep multiple copies 
• Continuously monitor your network for new devices, suspicious activity, and malicious traffic 
• Ensure you have a server firewall to prevent hackers from entering the network 
• Make sure you have access to 24*7 support 
• Review your passwords

Conclusion 

Big sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday can bring in massive revenues for your business, but they can also be extremely stressful. Cybercriminals won’t back down from taking advantage of every opportunity they get. So, make sure you follow the above-mentioned security tips to maximize your profits and ensure a safe shopping experience for your customers. 

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