Securing Your Electronic Transactions

17 Apr Securing Your Electronic Transactions

As your business expands and you reach more consumers and orders, you will want to make customer security a high priority. Though you lock your shop at night and keep your cash in a safe, are you doing everything you can to protect your electronic files? Many consumers today don’t carry cash, making debit and credit cards the go-to form of payment. Here are 3 tips to keep your customer’s electronic records safe.

1. Encryption and Tokenization – If your Point of Sale system is new or if you haven’t reviewed yours in a while, be certain it uses both encryption and tokenization. These two tools make the cornerstones of payment security and should come standard with your POS. If you’re uncertain, check with your processing company. Imagine if your system were hacked by someone
2. Protect your Network – Even the smallest of businesses need to make security a priority. Having a strong firewall in place, a locked-down wi-fi system, and adequate virus protection is a must for any company. Even if your customer’s credit card data is stored with your processor, other personal customer information may be at risk. To ensure you’ve done all you can to keep this data safe, contact a professional at Auditmacs for a security review.
3. Make Online Payments Secure – If your business has an e-commerce component and accepts credit cards online, be sure your payment processing service is protected with layers of specialized security. Your payment processor will have these safeguards in place. Speak with a representative there to be certain that payments taken over your website are kept secure. Also, consider taking the extra step in making your customers feel secure and purchase an SSL certificate from your hosting provider. This will change the “http” of your website to “https” and notify your customers that all transactions are on a secured server.

Many consumers know to look for “https” when placing an order and will not buy from a website which does not have this coding displayed. Remember, encryption translates all credit card numbers you’ve accepted into strings of incoherent characters making it nearly impossible for them to be stolen and used. Tokenization goes one step further and actually stores card data with your payment processor, only allowing it to be accessed via an authorized token on your end.