Online shopping platforms in the present times are the latest trends. People prefer to shop online rather than going into malls. COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for people to shop from online platforms and maintain social distancing. Unfortunately, Cybercriminals are fully prepared to use this for their own benefit. Now with the businesses shifted to online, it is now easier for criminals to carry on with their fraudulent activities. Online shopping is not cyber threat free. With this blog, we will look into detail the cyber threats the online shopping platforms face and what could be the security measures.
Cybercrime and Shopping Platform
People are always in a rush to get their hands on the best product. Sadly, in this race, they fail to focus on the risk of fraud that can occur. The businesses overlook the customer identity verification process which leads them to trouble. Cybercriminals are out there to breach data and gain the personal information of the employees or even important company data.
Identity theft is on the rise these days and criminals use the stolen identity to gain illegal access to the person’s credit card information. They can utilize the information to shop online and once the victim of the identity theft reports the theft to their bank, they reverse the transactions made. It’s too late to catch the fraudster and the business owner has to face the consequence of losing the product as well as money. On top of that, they have to pay penalties for not carrying out a proper customer verification procedure. Small businesses can be hugely affected by this type of fraud.
Another type of fraud that is carried out can be phishing attacks. Phishing attacks are malware emails that look like official emails to fool the person into opening them and giving out their personal information. An employee or an individual can be a victim of a phishing attack through an email offering sale or even an e-vite. One of the malware is in the system, the data can be easily breached and the company loses important data or the individual can have their identity stolen. The data can be used for blackmailing purposes and the company will have to pay a large sum to blackmailers.
Norton conducted a study that revealed that 65% of internet users have fallen victim to cybercrime and 73% of Web surfers have faced cybercrimes. This includes cyber crimes like computer viruses, credit card fraud, and identity theft. China has faced 83% of the cybercrimes, Brazil and India have faced 76% while the USA ranks at number three in the global list of victims of cybercrimes. According to an expert at a Congress in Orlando, Florida cybercrime is falsely seen as a victimless crime but it is causing its victims emotional, physical, and financial trauma.
Business owners who become victims of these crimes lose so much financially that it causes them stress. Their business goes in loss and even faces the threat of shutting down completely. They develop serious anxiety issues as well with the fear of losing their life’s hard work.
What’s the Solution?
In order to fight cybercrime, the most significant thing to do would be to spread as much awareness as possible. Businesses along with individuals should be made aware of the type of fraud and how they can become victims of it. This way they would know how to protect themselves if they face such situations.
Secondly, businesses can take security measures to combat cybercrimes. This way no individual will become a victim of cybercrime through their platforms. In order to enhance their security, there are AI-powered solutions that can help the businesses in proper customer verification to ensure that no fraudster or identity thief is trying to steal from them.
● Biometric Authentication
This is a security measure that uses a person’s biological features as a way to verify their identity. Businesses can use these measures to verify the identity of their customers before doing any business with them. This way they will be more secure and will have verified customers only. Biometric can now be performed through face verification as well.
● 2-FA
2-FA, two-factor authentication is a two-step verification process. The person has to use a password to secure their account and a code is sent to a person’s phone or email to verify their identity. It can be applied to assure that only legit customers are able to access their accounts and if an identity thief is gaining access to the account, they will not be verified.
● Identity Verification
These are software-based security measures that assist the business to verify their customers through their face, document, or even address. This is an AI-powered solution that makes the verification more accurate than ever.