As digital engagement continues rising year after year, brands must prioritize solid cybersecurity protections with any website overhaul. With attacks against websites increasing by over 600% since 2010, failing to safeguard your online platforms can leave customer data vulnerable and erode consumer trust. This article will provide tips on baking cutting-edge security into customer experience (CX) focused website redesigns.
Understanding Current Security Risks Facing Websites
Before transforming your website, it‘s important to thoroughly evaluate potential security gaps. Far too often companies rollout sweeping changes without reviewing current threats or validating that new controls are in place. Some risks to assess include:
- Injection Attacks: Flaws like SQL injection or cross-site scripting can allow hackers to funnel malicious code onto sites to steal data.
- Broken Authentication: Weak password policies lead to account takeover exploits that let cybercriminals access internal systems.
- Sensitive Data Exposure: Customer info like addresses or credit cards must be encrypted both at rest and in transit.
According to one Akamai analysis, over 8.3 billion web application attacks occur annually as techniques grow more advanced. Given rising threats, integrating security early in website projects is no longer optional.
Building Security Into Site Redesigns
Updating platforms with security front of mind requires both evaluating potential vulnerabilities and deploying controls across technology and processes. Tactics can include:
- Conduct Code Reviews: Analyze custom code for errors prone to hacking like SQLi before launch.
- Utilize Web Application Firewalls: Inspect traffic to block injections, bots, and other known threats.
- Enable TLS Encryption: Encrypt data in transit and enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS).
- Secure Admin Access: Require multi-factor authentication and limit privileged dashboard access.
- Validate Compliance: Verify data practices adhere to relevant standards like PCI DSS depending business model.
Taking even small steps to align with protections like the OWASP Top 10 goes a long way towards hardening environments. There are also emerging techniques like microsegmentation to limit breaches.
Enhancing CX Through Privacy Assurances
Beyond blocking attacks, consumers also demand visibility into data handling as privacy concerns mount. Steps that instill confidence include:
- Minimize Collection: Only gather essential customer information for business needs.
- Obtain Consent: Inform users regarding collected data and obtain clear consent.
- Access Controls: Restrict internal data access to employees on a need-to-know basis.
- Anonymize Info: Scrub PII via hashing/tokenization from analytics data and backups.
Adding a dedicated privacy or security page detailing policies, along with transparency in consent flows helps assure visitors their data is protected.
Testing and Auditing Ongoing Security
While deploying technological controls protects websites, you must also implement ongoing processes to validate defenses over time. Crucial activities include:
- Pen Testing: Schedule periodic simulated attacks to probe for unidentified gaps.
- Scanning: Continuously scan site code and infrastructure for misconfigurations.
- Monitoring: Review logs for anomalies and enable alerts for potential incidents.
By making assessments part of business-as-usual security routines rather than one-off initiatives, you can rapidly respond to evolving threats. Think annual check-ups at your doctor – reviewing protections regularly enables identifying issues early on.
In Closing: Security Underpins All CX Efforts
While ambitious digital initiatives open new opportunities, they also expose companies to growing cyber risks in our interconnected world. Integrating security into the early blueprint stages of website redesigns rather than just expecting existing tooling to transfer over is vital. Of course technology is just one piece of the puzzle – equally important are fostering an organizational culture valuing privacy while enabling customers to securely access services. With potential reputational damages and financial costs from incidents escalating yearly, the need for data security foundations before any CX rollout cannot be overstated. Let me know if you have any other questions!
