Heartbleed Endangers Your Online Web Store

Your customers trust your online web store with their personal information including address, phone number, and credit card information. Do you know if Heartbleed has compromised your ecommerce website design’s security and integrity? If you don’t know, or if you do know and haven’t taken action, you need to do so quickly, in order to protect your business and your customers. Read on to find out what Heartbleed is and how to protect yourself and your customers.

For the past two years your online webstore has been vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug. It was made public April 7th, 2014, when the security fix was released . At that time, approximately 17 percent of all of the Internet servers were considered to be vulnerable to the security breach. Heartbleed affects several versions of OpenSSL, a cryptographic library that enables SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Security Layer) encryption.  Basically, it allows hackers to get into an e-commerce web design’s web server and steal your security certificate, which is essentially your online identity, as well as your customers’ vital information. The majority of web servers have installed the security patch, but there’s still more to do to protect your business and your customers.

The bug was found by Codenomicon, a computer security company, and also Neel Mehta, who works on security for Google. Major ecommerce website designs, such as Amazon, have been affected along with other major websites like Facebook, Yahoo, Dropbox, Reddit, Tumblr, and more. Further complicating the issue is that you have to fix the bug within your ecommerce website design’s server before you reach out to assist your customers in protecting their vital information.

First, make sure that the security breach is fixed within your e-commerce web design’s server. The piece of coding you need can be easily found on line. Only after you’ve done that can you take the next steps, it’s imperative that you fix the breach first. Next, you need to have your security certificates and any at-risk keys revoked and reassigned. Then, you can reach out to your online web store’s  customers.

Reach out to your e-commerce web site design’s customers via email, blog, twitter and any other social media you have available. Educate them as to what Heartbleed is, and how it affects their usage of your online web store, as well as their other Internet experiences. Let them know that you addressd the problem on your end, and it’s now time for them to act. Advise them to change their passwords, and to notify you if they think they’ve been exploited.

What do you do if you don’t know if your ecommerce website design is safe? There are several websites, like this one, which offer a free test to check and see if the security patch for Heartbleed has been applied. You can also take advantage of the maintenance and support contract you should have for your ecommerce website design.

If you don’t have one, you can reach out to our maintenance and support experts here Thought Media. Heartbleed isn’t your only concern, it was only last year that the New York Times was hacked. Viruses, security breaches, and hacking can happen to any ecommerce website design at any time. Our maintenance and support experts are glad to answer any of your security questions and to assist you with all your online web store’s  online safety needs.