Running a successful WooCommerce store takes a lot of hard work and patience. You will constantly add products, fix bugs, and manage marketing activities. In addition, you will be concerned about the security of your website as online theft is on the rise. The security of your eCommerce store should be a top priority because people have to log in and upload their personal information to receive the best price guaranteed.
When you sell online, you deal with sensitive information: personal names, credit card numbers, addresses, and more. It’s a robust repository that constantly gathers new information, so you have more and more data for which you are responsible. You must protect your customers’ personal information from hackers and intruders, allowing customers to shop confidently. Your income from accidents and lost sales.
Keep all sales records up to the minute for tax and legal purposes. Maintain your brand and reputation as a trustworthy business and avoid the costs associated with recovering your business from a car accident, such as lost sales due to a crash, refunds from backorders, and website repair costs. Many people use WooCommerce to create online stores. WooCommerce holds over 40% of the market share. As a general rule: the higher the market share, the greater the chance of being hacked.
Therefore, it is essential to strengthen the security of WooCommerce stores. WooCommerce offers a simple and secure platform for ecommerce websites. So WooCommerce alone is safe. However, it does not protect you from external security threats such as hacks or brute-force attacks. To protect your WooCommerce site from these threats, you must secure your site and other systems properly.
Here are the security measures you should take to secure your WooCommerce store.
1. Choose a reputable WooCommerce hosting provider
Do you need dedicated hosting for WooCommerce? Well, given that the average WooCommerce site is data intensive and needs to handle high traffic, a specialized WooCommerce hosting company is more suitable than a regular hosting service. From a WooCommerce security perspective, you can expect this provider to provide comprehensive support covering all relevant areas of your website.
An SSL certificate provides an encrypted connection and blocks hackers from accessing names, addresses, passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information. Automatic backup to restore your site and activate it in case of an attack. Monitor attacks to detect and mitigate attacks in real-time.
24/7 support from experienced WooCommerce hosting experts on call to help you with security issues. Built-in plugin environment to safely test plugins and changes to your store before they go live. In practice, you can focus on the company’s promised warranty period. If you have a sizeable WooCommerce site with many products and drive a lot of traffic daily, at least 99.9% uptime is guaranteed.
2. Two-step verification
It’s not enough to have a complex keyword. If someone has access to your store, they will have enough time to collect information and change your domain name and website. To avoid such a failure, we recommend using two-step authentication or 2FA so that no one can access your website. It’s not enough to have a complex keyword.
If someone gains access to your store, they will have enough time to gather information and change your username and password. To avoid an emergency, we recommend using two-step verification or 2FA so that no one can access your site. Even with solid words and 2FA, some people may try to force your account.
These attacks are widespread among WordPress users, and the number of such attacks has increased over time. If you have Wordfence installed, you don’t need to worry about such attacks. But if you are not using Wordfence, you can implement Jetpack as a good alternative. The Jetpack is available in the trial version and is very effective against the power by blocking unwanted positions.
3. Use high-quality plugins
While plugins and extensions are a great way to increase your sales, only some of them are the same. A poorly written plugin makes it easier for hackers to access your site, so always use reputable, trusted resources and quality reviews. Don’t cut corners and download free versions of premium plugins from third parties; they often change to include malware. Finally, ensure your plugins are up-to-date and work with the latest versions of WordPress and WooCommerce.
4. Use secure payment gateways
Payment gateways are an essential part of online stores. This service is provided by an online store (bank or third party) that allows you to transfer money from one account to another. When choosing a provider for a payment gateway, you need to ensure they are reliable and have a reputation for secure transactions. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the most common way to exchange files over the internet.
File transfer is standard in online stores where customers request to download some online content to their personal computers. By managing FTP settings, you can assign permissions for various operations such as renaming, copying, deleting, and uploading. A lack of security on shared servers can result in attackers gaining access to essential website files. Restricting access to such vital files via FTP is a quick way to increase the security of a website.
5. Keep WooCommerce backups
Backing up everything, especially your website, is an essential step many overlooks. While backups don’t protect your site from hackers, they ensure that you can access important information if your site gets hacked. Having backups of your data can help you recover your site after a cyberattack or other incident, such as hardware failure or crashes due to high traffic. Daily backups ensure that your sales, orders, and product information can be recovered in the event of an emergency, and continuously for business continuity to avoid loss of customers and revenue.
An easy solution is to use a WordPress real-time backup plugin. Real-time backup allows you to restore data at any time and is especially useful when dealing with an extensive database. Persistent security issues. Many people ignore the need to restore their data, even though it requires a little work. In this case, you are always sure to have a backup of your WooCommerce site.
6. Implement geo-blocking
Most bots come from different countries. Because you manage your website, you know where to expect relevant traffic. If your website logs show increased visits from another country, it’s likely bots. Yes, you can also manage advertising campaigns; use this information carefully.
Conclusion
Security is an integral part of running an online store. After all, customers trust you with their personal information, and you want them to trust you. Before you start an online business, you should spend time and money to improve the security and protection of your WooCommerce stores. This saves a lot of time and money to recover an online business after a cyber-attack and restore it. Take the time to complete the above listed steps, and you’ll end up with a net more secure website.
