Thank you to those who wrote me about yesterday's article and I am
working on answering all of you as this newsletter is being sent.
Today's article is about the security of your ecommerce site.
I hope that you enjoy it.
With all of the WYSIWYG HTML editors (like Microsoft's FrontPage)
almost anyone can publish a web site. This is good, if the web site
is only going to be used as a hobby/personal site or as a business
advertisement site. Anything more extensive than a static web site
should be left to a professional or should be thoroughly researched.
Credit card fraud and stolen credit card numbers are at an all-time
record high. An e-commerce site must NOT be developed by a webmaster
who doesn't fully understand internet security issues.
Too often the hobbyist web master will develop an e-commerce web site
without the knowledge needed to make it secure. What's worse is that
banks, who approve web sites for online credit card acceptance, are
inadvertently allowing unsafe web sites to pass. This is putting
online consumers in an unfair (and unsafe!) situation. Just because
a web site advertises that it is secure, doesn't necessarily make it
so. There are very few web site owners that would intentionally put
their customers at risk. It is generally a case of the web site
owner thinking his site is secure, when it really isn't.
Generally, you are safe to assume that big corporate web sites are
safe for online ordering purposes. They have too much to lose to
leave any security risks. Yes, these sites can be hacked...but it
isn't likely. The public should be more concerned about the hundreds
of thousands of small potato business web sites that are being
created by the web hobbyist.
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So, how can you make sure that your site is credit card friendly?
The number one mistake that web site owners make, when accepting
credit cards online, is having orders e-mailed to themselves. This
is an extremely risky way to receive credit card information. These
e-mailed credit card numbers can be intercepted and copied.
Many people believe that if you put a web page order form on a secure
page, beginning with https://, that the credit card information is
safe. This is correct if you have the credit card numbers sent and
stored in a secure database environment. This is ABSOLUTELY
INCORRECT if those credit card numbers are sent via unencrypted
e-mail. Even a hacker with limited knowledge of security issues
can harvest credit card numbers from unencrypted e-mail messages.
Another common mistake is to publish an online order form on a
non-secure page. If you place an online credit card order, look at
the web site address on the page that requests your credit card
information. The web site address MUST begin with https:// and NOT
http:// if it is secure.
Consumers: Never place a credit card order on a page that doesn't
start with https://.
Web site Owners: Never place an order form, that asks for credit
card numbers, on a page that doesn't start with https://. If you are
unsure how to do this, contact the company that hosts your web site.
They can probably help you set this up.
Protect your customers, build a secure site!
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The easiest and safest method, for the average person, to build an
e-commerce site is to find pre-packaged e-commerce solutions. Many
hosting companies offer a shopping cart system pre-installed with web
hosting packages. Pre-installed shopping cart systems usually have a
user-friendly control panel that allows the site owner to
add/remove/change products without any knowledge of programming.
Editing can usually be done by filling out a few online forms via
your web browser.
Next, find out which merchant account/online payment processing
companies can integrate with that shopping cart system.
Authorize.net can usually integrate with most shopping cart systems.
There are others as well.
The major benefit of integrating a merchant account/payment processing
company with a shopping cart is that the site owner is not involved
in handling credit card transactions. Generally, the order
information (less the credit card numbers) are e-mailed to the web
site owner and the credit card numbers are sent, securely, to the
merchant account/payment processing company. The merchant
account/payment processing company charges the customers' credit card
and then gets the actual payment to the site owners' bank account.
This is probably the most secure method for accepting credit card
orders online.
Make sure that the web sites you visit and the web sites you own are
safe - when it doubt, ASK QUESTIONS. If you're in doubt as to whether
or not a site is safe, consult an expert. A false sense of security
is worse than no security at all.
Tina Peters, Affordable Host
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We at the Editorial Team would like to thank all our readers for reading WebProNews.
We hope you find this information useful.
Peter Thiruselvam
Editor
The WebProNews Team
Expert in your field? We're looking for ARTICLES on web site design and
development, promotion, positioning, and e-commerce. Articles
should be in the 700 to 800 word range and include a 2 line
promotion of the author's site. Send submissions to: Pete@WebProNews
