Data is a major talking point at every level of commerce, and there’s a great reason for that. Market data of all kinds gives businesses the tools they need to develop more informed, and therefore more successful, business and marketing strategies that can help them get a competitive edge.
However, this reliance on information, digital storage, and analysis of data creates its own problems, and businesses will need to take extra steps to keep that valuable data out of the hands of hackers. Here’s what you need to know.
Protecting App Users
Proprietary apps are a common tactic for modern businesses, because they provide consumers with a convenient way to engage with your company’s ecommerce functionality from their smartphones. These apps are easy to create, but this may come at the expense of security. APIs (application programming interfaces) make it easy for companies to develop apps quickly and at a low cost, but these APIs can easily be obtained and exploited by hackers seeking to steal the data of your customers.
You should take steps to improve security, but what is web API security? Simply put, it is the protection of the integrity of APIs you own and use. It’s an essential part of keeping your app and your customers’ data safe.
Securing Your Website
Unsecure websites can create a whole host of problems for your company. Again, the question of end user security comes into question, because unsecure websites can become saddled with malware that can sap the data of unsuspecting consumers, or their data can be intercepted enroute during exchanges.
On the other hand, unsecure websites are less visible to search engines like Google as a measure put in place to protect consumers, and that makes it much more difficult to do business and to increase your reach and brand recognition. In order to avoid these problems, you’ll need to invest in encryption software that can scramble data during transfers in order to render it meaningless to hackers. This kind of protocol also entails decryption that reverses the process on either end of a transaction.
Investing In Network Security
Securing your network against infiltration is crucial for protecting your data, and doing so hinges on a few key tools. For starters, network traffic monitoring software is a crucial part of your defense, because it allows you to pinpoint potential threats as a result of the observation of suspicious behavior coming from certain IP addresses.
In addition to these predictive capabilities, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention software serve as a sort of alarm system in place in case of successful infiltration. DDoS prevention can thwart DDoS attacks by intercepting and removing fraudulent requests that can bog down your network, eventually causing a crash. DDoS attacks are incredibly intricate, and that makes them uncommon. However, the results of a successful DDoS attack can be incredibly detrimental and costly.
Multi-factor Authentication
Password security and human error account for the vast majority of security breaches, and that’s because passwords can be incredibly easy to crack in a number of ways. The average password is easy to remember, so some educated guesses can allow hackers access in virtually no time at all.
Multi-factor authentication is quickly becoming standard practice for many companies, because it reduces the consequences of a compromised password almost completely. This is because MFA requires your password to be supplemented with an identifying “token” that typically takes the form of a code sent to your smartphone via an app or a text message. This means successfully gaining access to your account requires a hacker to have your password and your phone, which is virtually impossible. With that in mind, some businesses have gone all in for passwordless login to eliminate the woefully sufficient password system altogether.
Protecting the data of your business and your customers is a full time job. However, these tips can simplify cybersecurity and can help you even the odds against hackers.
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