Due to the ease of using WooCommerce and providing all the options that any online store owner aspires to, WooCommerce has become today one of the most used plugins for designing and launching online stores using WordPress.
Although it is easy to use and saves a lot of time to launch your own store, it is important to work on securing the store from fraud as well as security vulnerabilities, and the matter does not end only at the moment of launching the site online.
In this article, we will first review the most important protection measures against security vulnerabilities that a hacker may exploit to carry out an attack on the store and steal data or completely disable the store.
Then we talk about the most famous fraudulent operations as well as possible security vulnerabilities in electronic stores, so this article will serve as a reference for fully securing and protecting WooCommerce stores.
Is WooCommerce safe to launch online stores?
WooCommerce has a large percentage of the number of online stores operated by it, exceeding millions, and the demand for it is increasing day after day due to many of the power factors it enjoys, as it saves a lot of time for developers in developing and programming electronic stores.
In addition to the high security rate in the Allo-Commerce system, WooCommerce and WordPress are updated regularly to confront any sabotage attacks or hacking attempts sought by saboteurs from everywhere in the world.
Despite the high degree of security enjoyed by WordPress and WooCommerce, the process of securing the store does not end here, as the store owner must always work to repel any potential attacks by applying security measures to the store to protect the store’s data as well as customer data from theft or exposure. For fraud.
Therefore, the security of your online store ultimately depends on your keenness to clean the site from unreliable add-ons and templates, as well as performing periodic updates to the system and the rest of the security and protection measures that we talk about during the following paragraphs.
We had published an article in which we talked about the measures that you must take if your site has already been hacked. The article provides you with important tips and recommendations to take in this case.
Secure your WooCommerce store from the start
The specific risks of WordPress stores are divided into risks resulting from technical and programming vulnerabilities on the site. There are also risks related to the actions taken by the customer during the purchase and payment stage within the store, so we start with you with the most important security measures that help protect your store from security and programming vulnerabilities, and then in the paragraphs Next we talk about the scams that can be done from the user interface.
- Choose secure web hosting: Choosing secure hosting is the first step towards having an adequately secure online store, so focus carefully on choosing a hosting company that has a good reputation among its users and security systems that always work to protect your site from all hacking operations.
- Paying attention to the backup copy: One of the most important security and protection measures that you must take constantly is that backup copies help in easily retrieving site data and files in the event that data is stolen or the site is completely vandalized.
- Installing an SSL certificate: An SSL certificate adds an additional layer of security and protection to your online store, so do not neglect to install a strong security certificate.
- Protection from a brute force attack : One of the most dangerous attacks against online stores on WordPress specifically. You have an article that talks about protection from a brute force attack on WooCommerce stores and ways to protect against it.
- Choose strong passwords : There is no excuse for using weak and predictable passwords in a world that has become full of widespread security hacks and fraud, so do not use weak or duplicate passwords.
- Installing security plugins : There are many plugins to secure and protect WordPress sites, and it is sufficient to use one of the WordPress security plugins , which helps you detect any fraud or data theft that occurs within your site, which adds a good layer of security to your site.
- Update WordPress regularly: WordPress provides you with ready-made periodic updates, and all you have to do is apply WordPress updates to your site to protect your online store from harmful security vulnerabilities.
- Beware of pirated templates : Due to the widespread and widespread use of the WordPress system in the world, you will find dozens of sites that offer you plugins and paid templates for free and for nothing. Perhaps the goal of publishing these paid templates for free to large numbers of users is to plant malicious files inside the codes. The source of those templates and add-ons in order to exploit them to launch sabotage campaigns or benefit from the data of those sites, so always try to adhere to the official sources of templates and add-ons within the store and stay away from pirated templates and add-ons .
The most common scams and how to protect WooCommerce stores from them
After we learned about the most famous procedures for securing and protecting the online store from the store’s technical security vulnerabilities, we now show you the most famous fraud and scams that many store owners are exposed to daily, and the ways to confront these fraudulent cases.
1. Stealing the identity of store customers
One of the most famous fraud attempts that occur within the online store on an almost daily basis in many online stores spread around the world is stealing the identity of customers registered on the site.
In this case, the attacker steals the login data of one or some of the customers registered on the site, then logs into the customer’s account and completes orders using the customer’s payment method, and thus the customer becomes a victim of this procedure.
In this type of fraud, the customer often submits a request to recover his money, and in most cases the money is actually recovered and the store owner is the biggest loser in that case.
To avoid this type of fraud, it is preferable to use a secure payment gateway that provides high levels of security and protection during payment on the order completion page within the store. Some payment gateways provide a way to confirm the purchase process using OTP messages, where a message containing a code is sent to confirm the payment process to the customer and the payment process is not completed. Payment only after successfully entering the insurance code.
2. Purchases using stolen payment cards
Vandals never tire of searching for devious ways to carry out their fraudulent operations on online stores, and purchases made using stolen payment cards are considered one of the most famous fraudulent operations that your online store may be exposed to one day.
In this case, the fraudulent operation may not be easily noticed, because the thief creates an account within the store and may also willingly agree to the terms and conditions, and when he makes a purchase for one or some products inside the store, he enters the data of a payment card stolen from another person without his knowledge.
Purchases made with stolen payment cards often succeed, but you can confront this type of fraud by coordinating with the company you deal with to install a payment gateway within your store, as any payment process made with a payment card belonging to a country other than the country from which the customer enters can be canceled or rejected. To the store, you can also activate OTP messages that are sent to the card holder’s phone number to confirm the payment process successfully and without problems.
3. Merchants defraud customers
If you have a multi-vendor store, you are exposed to this type of fraud, in which one of the merchants registered in the store displays some fake basket to the store, and the customer buys the fake product and completes the payment process.
In this case, the customer pays for a product for which he only sees a picture, and in the end he discovers that there is no real product to receive.
This type of fraud has been exposed to many companies, even major companies such as Amazon, which allows multiple merchants and sellers on its platform, but Amazon has limited this type of fraud through interview procedures as well as face-to-face video calls with new sellers wishing to register on the platform to start selling. Selling under real and known identities.
You can combat this type of fraud by verifying the identities of the sellers registered within your store and do not register anyone who is unknown or unsure of their true identity because in the end it is the store owner who suffers from negative reviews of the store as well as requests for refunds.
4. Catching personal data of store customers
You should not assume that all customers registered with the store have sufficient awareness of the procedures for protecting and securing their data online, as some saboteurs send e-mails to your customers in the name of the store and ask them to send sensitive data in order to review the data and confirm their membership within the store.
In this case, saboteurs can capture the data of online store customers through these fraudulent messages, and thus this data can be used to make purchases using the customers’ payment data.
This type of fraud can be dealt with by sending e-mail messages to your store’s customers warning them against dealing with any e-mail or text messages or any messages requesting from them personal data or information related to their accounts within the store, in addition to warning them that the store does not ask its customers to confirm the data except through communication channels. Know and clarify the communication channels between you and your customers in order to increase their awareness and prevent any fraudulent attempts to steal or capture their data.
5. Fictitious or fraudulent orders for store products
This type of fraud is closer to theft, as in this case the saboteurs complete purchase orders from inside the store using fake delivery data, and when the representative arrives with the product, the product is stolen from him without paying the price, and the matter may develop into more than that.
There are some simple ways to confront this type of fraud, the most famous of which is to make a phone call with the customer who has the order and record the call while confirming the order with him before shipping the product, and thus you have an audio recording that shows the voice of the person requesting the order.
A system can also be implemented to confirm the phone numbers that customers add to their accounts inside the store, so that it does not allow saboteurs to register random or fraudulent phone numbers, and thus reduces the possibility of making fake orders for products inside the store.
6. Trusted customers are deceived into purchasing products
One of the processes that you are expected to encounter within your online store is that one of the store’s customers orders more than once without any problems until he completes more than one successful, legitimate purchase within the store.
After that, the customer himself completes an order for a large amount and pays using his payment card. Then, after receiving the order, he files a complaint that his payment card was stolen and denies the entire purchase process in order to recover the full purchase amount for the order he made.
Certainly, this is considered the most difficult scam that can be exposed to, and as they say, the stab that comes from those you trust is the cruelest.
You can work to avoid such frauds by coordinating with shipping companies by requiring the customer to sign the receipt invoice or any other confirmation method that confirms the customer’s receipt of the medicine or confirms that any other person has received the medicine so that they can refer to it if you are exposed to such a type of fraud.
7. Display products that affect your store’s reputation
One of the fraudulent operations that is carried out in order to harm the reputation of the online store only and does not aim to steal products.
If you have a multi-seller store, it is likely that a competitor will create a seller account within the online store, and after successfully activating his account, he will add a lot of products in a random way, whether by adding imaginary prices or adding unreal pictures of the product or other data or products that may negatively affect the product. On the store’s reputation.
This type of fraud is considered one of the easiest frauds that you can confront by verifying the identity of any new merchant by requesting registration as a seller within the store and verifying his data, in addition to developing a solid system to review all products that are added within the store.
Measures to protect the store from security vulnerabilities and fraud
Now you have a good point of view about the most common scams that your online store is likely to be exposed to, and as you have noticed, almost all of the scams are not due to WooCommerce being insufficiently secure, but due to some tricks and loopholes that hackers are trying to exploit in order to gain access to… Carrying out sabotage, theft or fraud operations.
In the following paragraphs, we provide you with some advice regarding the security measures that you can start to secure your online store from fraud and security breaches.
1. Apply a security scan for the online store
There are many tools and programs that provide you with the ability to conduct a comprehensive security scan of the store to identify the security vulnerabilities present in the store and its pages, and thus you can work to close and repair those gaps before a saboteur enters and exploits them to his advantage to steal data or carry out fraudulent operations inside the store.
There are many security scanning programs, such as the Intruder service and the UpGuard service , which provide you with a free period to try them out and conduct a store security scan that provides you with accurate and very useful data about security vulnerabilities within your store and the most important recommendations for fixing and getting rid of them.
2. Activate two-step verification when members log in
Two-step verification is one of the security measures that major companies have begun to implement on their electronic systems, as it prevents a large percentage of fraudulent transactions that occur over the Internet.
Activating two-step verification in WordPress is considered one of the easiest security things that you can do, as there are many plugins that do this, such as the Google Authenticator add-on , which helps you activate two-step verification for members of your online store in very simple steps.
3. Verify the customer’s address to receive orders
One of the security measures to protect customer data within the store is to verify the delivery address that customers enter into their accounts in the store.
Some local and international banks also provide this service, where the customer’s address inside the store is matched with the address registered with the bank issuing the payment card, and the purchase can be rejected if the order’s address does not match the address of the person registered with his bank.
4. Track the geographical location of your store customers
Many online stores now ask the customer for permission to track geographical location, in order to detect logins that occur on customer accounts from unknown or unreliable places.
Geolocation tracking is useful in adding a good layer of protection to customer data within the store and the ability to reject logins that occur from places that are unreliable or unusual for the customer to enter from. In this case, the login can be rejected and a notification can be sent to the customer to secure his account and confirm the data.
5. Require users to use strong passwords
Many customers and users of online stores do not have sufficient awareness of the security measures they must take to secure their data online.
Show special notifications using strong passwords to your customers within the login form or new store membership registration form.
We provided useful information to customers about how to create a strong password that is difficult to hack, such as adding special symbols to it and upper and lower case letters, and the password should not be less than 8 characters, for example.
6. Install and activate one of the WordPress security plugins
Using a WordPress security plugin is considered one of the important security measures that helps you limit fraud that could occur within your online store.
WordPress security plugins are very useful for securing your online store from potential hacking operations, as they can send you reports about the hacking attempts that occurred within the store, and the IP addresses from which those sabotage attempts occurred.
In addition, it sends you alerts about suspicious activities taking place inside the store, which helps you track any suspicious activity in the store and work to address it before suffering any losses.
Conclusion
In the end, securing WooCommerce stores has become one of the important measures that the store owner must pay sufficient attention to, due to the increased possibility of exposure to attacks by online vandals.
Do not wait for the moment when the hack occurs, start from now and review the level of security within your store and be sure to implement all the security measures that we talked about in the article to secure your store from any expected fraud or hacking, because this may cause major financial losses in addition to the store’s reputation, which will be negatively affected. Fraud and hacking operations.
