There are several ways in which cybercriminals commonly target company websites to steal customers’ sensitive and financial data. There is still a huge blind spot among organizations when it comes to website security, with many businesses directing their cybersecurity spending towards protecting internal networks, systems and servers – leaving their website unsecured and vulnerable to attack. This is incredibly risky as no organization can afford the huge cost and long-term damage of a data breach. Here are a few examples of how a breach of your website can cause long-term damage to your organization:

JavaScript (JS) injections

Around 95 percent of websites are built using JavaScript (JS), which makes them vulnerable to attack. Cybercriminals will take advantage of vulnerabilities in a website’s JavaScript code to gain access to confidential customer data or interrupt the user’s browsing session. JS injection attacks occur when an attacker adds or injects their own malicious code into an existing authorized application. It is estimated that half of the web applications have access control issues and a third are susceptible to code injection.

Cross-site scripting (XSS)

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a method of JavaScript injection, which can add to or change the appearance of website content, steal session cookies or redirect users to another website.

An iframe phishing technique was recently discovered whereby malicious code was injected into every page of a website and asked customers to enter their payment data. This method differs from traditional JS injection attacks because it displays a credit card phishing form page and redirects users to a payment service provider.

Third-party vulnerabilities

A website’s ecosystem can include dozens of third-party technologies that improve the user experience, increase functionality on the website or help marketers collect meaningful customer insights; the average retail website now uses between 40-60 third parties. Unfortunately, these third-party vendors also provide a ‘back door’ to your website, which cybercriminals are increasingly utilizing to gain access to your customer’s sensitive payment data.

Formjacking

Digital Payment Card Skimming (DPCS) or formjacking attacks now account for most web breaches (71 percent of all web-related data breaches in 2018). These attacks involve injecting malicious JavaScript code to steal credit card details and other information from the payment forms on checkout pages of eCommerce websites. Because PCI compliance prevents customers from storing their three-digit credit card security number on a website’s servers, hackers are turning their attention to the client-facing side of the website to steal the information as it is entered.

Magecart

One group of cybercriminals is responsible for the spike in formjacking attacks: Magecart.

Magecart is behind over 350,000 website data breaches in 2018 alone, including attacks on high-profile victims Ticketmaster, Newegg, Kitronik and VisionDirect. The threat to eCommerce sites is so prevalent today that the FBI has issued a warning, urging organizations to “take note of this new breed of cyberattack and put security measures in place to protect end-users.”

Tag piggybacking

Tag piggybacking can occur when one marketing tag triggers another, leading to dozens or even hundreds of additional tags being launched without your knowledge – from here, these tags can access sensitive customer data, causing data security and privacy issues, as well as impacting website performance.

Ad injections and adware

Almost seven out of ten shoppers will abandon their shopping cart before completing a purchase. One of the main reasons for this is unauthorized ad injections, where shoppers are targeted by competitive and/or malicious ads. These ads can impact the online customer experience and cost you valuable sales.

Website security checklist

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to securing your website is a lack of visibility into the types of threats your organization is facing today. You need a universal solution that can protect your website against malicious JavaScript injection, unauthorized data collection, third-party vulnerabilities and prevent ad injection. This should include:

1. Real-time website monitoring: Monitoring of all network requests coming into or out of the website to detect potential malicious threats
2. Automated website privacy audit and alerts: Detect risks to your data privacy rules – website scanning will check for unapproved technologies that may have access to your customer data
3. Masking of sensitive data: Determine unique data patterns to prevent sensitive data from being exposed within the URL and passed to unauthorized third-party technologies
4. Allow and block third-party technologies: Define or remove permissions for approved third-party vendors, to block unauthorized data collection and advertising
5. Privacy gateways: Block unknown and unwanted website trackers, technologies and tags from firing on site and collecting sensitive customer data
6. Blocking of unauthorized network calls: Block Magecart style attacks and CSS hacks to protect end-users and stop data leakage
7. CCPA and GDPR compliance enforcement: Define parameters based on global data privacy laws to enforce website compliance in real-time

Get in contact to learn more about how you can prevent data leakage and protect your website from being compromised.