Data Migration Strategies: Ensuring Integrity and Security during eCommerce Transitions

We’re in the rocket-speed era of eCommerce where customers love convenience. But do they want it at the cost of their data privacy and security? No. Whatever type of business, app, or service; customers and users choose security and integrity any day over other benefits. This becomes more crucial with vulnerable yet fast-growing industries such as the retail market and eCommerce.

Among other growth-related decisions of eCommerce, one is migration: be it platform-based, server-based, or partial transfer. Ironically, while many eCommerce data migration decisions are based on security upgrades, poor re-platforming processes can lead to harsher security issues.

However, if you follow some effective data migration strategies, this process can be extremely smooth. The result will be data security and integrity of customers who trust you with their sensitive information.

What Security Concerns Does eCommerce Face?

Online stores are generally huge and can face numerous security-related threats and issues. These can be related to data privacy, website security, and authentication:

●  Insecure data transmission
●  Malicious SQL injection
●  Weak authentication
●  Phishing attacks
●  Outdated software
●  Security loopholes
●  Irregular monitoring
●  Inefficient access control

Once you pay attention to these security concerns, you can create a checklist of your data migration strategies to smartly mitigate any potential risks to your website’s security and integrity.

Data Migration Strategies for eCommerce Businesses

SSL Encryption

One of the foremost data migration strategies is implementing SSL encryption (“https” rather than “http” in the URL) on your new platform. When a customer shares sensitive information such as credentials or card details, SSL turns it into code to prevent unauthorized access. Make sure that all of your website’s pages have SSL encryption enabled.

Secure Payment Gateways

When it comes to integrating payment gateways, research is important. This service can drastically influence your customers’ shopping decisions.

Your payment gateway must be PCI DSS-compliant (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and highly prestigious in the market. Such gateways do an efficient job of keeping payment-related data encrypted. Stripe, PayPal, etc. are popularly secure platforms.

Powerful Passwords

Another crucial point among data migration strategies is implementing policies related to strong passwords. A strong password is generally one that has a minimum eight-character length. It should use capital and small letters together, along with including special characters and numerals.

Multi-Factor Authentication

Using an extra layer of security is always a great idea, especially in the highly vulnerable eCommerce market. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) such as 3-D Secure technology does exactly that. It asks the shoppers to provide a PIN (sent on their registered mobile number) while finalizing their payments.

Read more about how 3-D Secure: Enhancing Payments for Merchants and Shoppers, Deterring Fraudsters.

Frequent Security Audits

While planning your data migration strategies, don’t forget about vulnerability audits of your new website. Keeping a tab on potential security threats and loopholes can give you chances to promptly prevent risks at bay. You can collaborate with security experts to regularly audit your eCommerce platform after migration.

Regular Backups

Backing up your data before migration is a smart practice. Your eCommerce data is huge and crucial. Keeping a backup of all the data makes sure you still have access to valuable information in case anything goes wrong.

As for post-migration, you can implement automated backups to keep your eCommerce data safe.

Firewall Protection

Another important one among data migration strategies is implementing firewall protection on your website post-migration.

A firewall (WAF) can effectively filter genuine, spam, and malicious traffic on your platform coming from the internet.

Apart from this, it also blocks cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and other threats.

Conclusion

Migration is a major decision of any business, especially eCommerce migration, as it involves huge data. An important part of migration is security. In this case, creating an SEO Migration Checklist is crucial.

We suggest making it a practice to keep the security points at the top of this checklist. Remember, that your eCommerce reputation largely depends on how much security you can provide along with convenience, value, and good services.