With all of the media coverage, online articles, and newsgroups broadcasting the subject, there is little doubt that security is a big issue when it comes to online shopping. Everyone on the net is aware of the massive amount of credit card fraud occurring through online shopping carts. However, the newer online business owner may not be fully aware of the dangers of shopping cart security issues.

First, just because a shopping cart software boasts its security features, that does not mean that the software is bug free, and has no holes for hackers to find. Most shopping cart software has holes that hackers can sneak through to gain access to your customer’s personal information through your online shopping cart. The security provided by this software is fairly good, but you should not solely rely on these shopping cart security features to protect your customer information.

Databases such as MySQL also offer valuable security features. However, these too may have holes for hackers to worm their way into your customer credit card information through your shopping cart. Do not rely on these security measures alone, or combined with shopping cart security features.

Another area for holes is within the online business computers themselves. Many smaller online businesses run their shopping cart software from a leased server, and store much customer information on their own hard drives. Linking your shopping cart software to the accounting software on your hard drive is typically the easiest way to ensure that hackers can access your customer’s private information, because the accounting software itself is not likely to have any security features of its own.

Although convenient, storing this information on your hard drive can be a huge mistake, because even with firewalls, antivirus software, and scam blockers your hard drive is far from secure. Security features such as firewalls can, and often are, cracked by hackers. Even encrypting the information on your hard drive is no match for the professional hacker, who can likely crack any encryption with a few clicks on a well developed decoding software.

The best way to address security issues with your online shopping cart is to use a variety of security features on every level to help you protect your customers, and yourself. Using a combination of security features for your shopping cart, server, and hard drive is the best way to avoid the costly fraud that can occur from online shopping cart security issues.