Brazilian e-commerce is expected to generate more than 234.9 million reais in 2025, according to ABComm, representing a 15% increase compared to last year. The growth of sales in the digital environment also attracts the attention of cybercriminals, who improve their practices against retailers and consumers in order to steal and hijack data, take down online stores, or commit fraud through fake emails, messages, and websites.
In addition to the negative impact on the consumer, an attacked or cloned online store can cause financial losses and damage to the brand's reputation. Faced with the possibility of scams, specialist Eduardo Gonçales, CISO of TIVIT, a Brazilian multinational that connects technology for a better world, lists some precautions for retailers to sell without headaches:
Ensure availability- The stability of the site is essential for the operation to function fully even during periods of increased traffic, thus preventing the store from losing sales due to technical issues. In addition to investing in technological infrastructure and security solutions, it is essential to protect against so-called denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which aim to direct a volume of simultaneous accesses far above normal to a specific address until it becomes congested and unavailable.
Explore a web –Include routines in your processesthreat intelligence, or brand monitoring, in order to research mentions about the company and its executives in forums in the different layers of the internet, includingdark webanddeep web, where all types of attacks are ordered and planned. With this type of scanning, it is possible to detect plans to redirect your website traffic to fake pages on the internet or social media, thus preventing unauthorized or fraudulent sales of products bearing your brand.
Raise awareness among employees to protect their data –Market research indicates that the main entry points formalwareused in attacksphishingand ofransomware, who encrypt the data in exchange for a ransom amount, are the employees themselves. Most of the time, due to lack of knowledge, there is negligence when handling suspicious emails, connecting USB devices, accessing compromised websites, or using software with vulnerabilities. With remote work, the use of personal devices connected to the corporate network also increased. In addition to technology and processes, awareness among people is one of the essential pillars to ensure data security and avoid operational paralysis.
Perform backup and validate its integrity- In order to minimize the risks of service interruption and ensure that data can be recovered quickly and easily, it is very important to have a consistent backup system, periodically tested to validate its content and integrity, since many attacks start by compromising the backup and then impact the production environment. Furthermore, it is essential to have documentation with the catalog of all servers and ensure the order of data recovery in the event of a disaster, reducing data recovery time.
Validate your code repositories– A massive infection campaign in e-commerce stores is underway under the name ofHubberstore, the attack occurs through malicious JavaScript code used for extracting personal data and credit card information.
The recommendations in this case are as follows:
- Keep systems up to date, including operating systems, services, andframeworksused on the websites.
- Periodically review the codes in your repository and production environment, seeking to identify possible injections of malicious artifacts.
- Follow secure development best practices, a good reference is OWASP.
- Analysislogsand audit trails, preferably using a correlation system oflogs(SIEM), with the aim of identifying attempts to exploit vulnerabilities.
- Implement a multi-factor security (MFA) solution at key entry points and in your main code development environments, such as repositories and CI/CD (continuous integration and delivery) solutions.
Control and limit access to information- Ensure that users have the minimum privileges and restrict access to those who truly need it, ensuring their periodic review and recertification. The implementation of segmentation in the network minimizes the risk of an attack spreading quickly and uncontrollably, preventing significant impact and financial loss, and finally, use a password vault solution to enhance security for privileged access.
