eCommerce is the process of buying and selling goods through the Internet. In this ecosystem, transactions take place digitally through electronic funds that are further processed by payment gateways. Since eCommerce websites transfer money digitally, hackers can exploit vulnerabilities as a golden opportunity to break into eCommerce websites and obtain financial data. These eCommerce security threats are so harmful that they can cause online stores to shut down.
Although many online businesses have adopted great solutions and best-in-class eCommerce app development services to get rid of these threats, cybercriminals still attack them because cloud-based stores deal with sensitive information and financial transactions. Therefore, in this blog, we have discussed the top 10 eCommerce security threats in 2025 that create problems for business owners and how to address them wisely.
Why eCommerce Security Matters in 2025
1. Protecting Customer Data from Cyber Threats
Your buyers trust you with their personal and financial data which makes data security important. The occurrence of even a single breach can break their trust. For instance, security threats in eCommerce like leakage of credit card details, addresses, and passwords are no less than a violation. To resolve this issue, you can make use of encryption tools, such as SSL/TLS to secure data in transit.
2. Building Customer Trust with Strong Security Measures
Just so you know, visible security measures reassure consumers that they are on a safe platform. eCommerce security solutions, such as HTTPS and trust badges augment the confidence of potential patrons. Resultantly, shoppers are more likely to buy things from a secure platform.
3. Preventing Financial Loss Due to Security Breaches
Security threats in eCommerce such as cyberattacks can lead to direct financial losses through fraud or downtime. For example, recovering from a breach can be costly, not just in terms of money but reputation as well. However, performing regular updates and setting up a strong security framework can mitigate vulnerabilities.
4. Ensuring Business Continuity with Robust Protection
Experiencing downtime because of cyberattacks can interrupt operations and result in a loss of revenue. A case in point here is that DDoS attacks or ransomware can ruin your store. But if you employ eCommerce security trends such as disaster recovery plans and regular backups, you can effectively deal with these attacks.
5. Avoiding Legal Risks & Compliance Issues
The last point you must learn is that non-compliance with data protection laws can translate into massive fines. Having said that, if you stay on top of relevant regulations and implement important protocols, you can bypass legal and regulatory risks easily. Also, laws like GDPR and guidelines like PCI DSS make it necessary to implement strict security measures for your website seeking robust eCommerce security.
eCommerce Security Statistics: Why Protection is Crucial
There is no denying the fact that cybercriminals can penetrate even the most secure company networks and hack their local network resources. It is even more fearful, considering how organizations feel vulnerable to cyberattacks as such attacks have grown more advanced over time. But the good news is that cutting-edge eCommerce security solutions are emerging frequently to prevent any financial or data loss. In fact, as per an international data and business intelligence platform, Statistia, the global eCommerce fraud detection and prevention market is expected to exceed the 100 billion mark by 2027, compared to 36.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2021.
This shows the necessity to invest in state-of-the-art security solutions that can help protect your eCommerce platform. Now that you got the hang of where the eCommerce market is headed, it is time to learn about the threats.
Top eCommerce Security Threats in 2025 & How to Stay Safe
1. E-Skimming: How Hackers Steal Payment Information
E-skimming is a sophisticated cyberattack targeting eCommerce stores, where malicious code is pushed into a website’s checkout page to get customer payment information secretly. Once acquired, the captured consumer payment details are sold on the dark web. The best example you should be familiar with is when British Airways experienced a massive data leak in 2018, which impacted almost 400,000 patrons. By inserting malicious code in payment forms, the hackers fetched confidential payment information, tampering with eCommerce security.
Solution: How to Prevent E-Skimming Attacks?
The foundation of a successful eCommerce store begins with picking the right eCommerce platform. Having the most suitable eCommerce platform at your disposal, like WooCommerce, enables you to use tools to list products, manage orders, and process payments securely. For instance, WooCommerce provides key security features, like SSL encryption and role-based access control, which eliminate several security threats for eCommerce websites.
2. Spamming: A Silent Cyber Threat to Online Stores
Although email marketing is considered a robust channel for higher sales, it is one of the widely used mediums for spamming. And just to let you know, spam costs businesses billions every year, compelling them to discover and adopt powerful eCommerce security solutions. Apart from emails, comments on your web blogs or contact forms are also seen as an open invitation for malicious actors, who drop infected links to harm the reputation of your website.
Solution: How to Protect Your eCommerce Site from Spam?
If you want to be aware of every malicious attack, it is essential to keep your eyes open for each suspicious activity. This can save you from facing a lot of issues, including revenue loss since you can easily catch a fraudulent transaction before it occurs. SEON is one of the tried and tested eCommerce security solutions that comes in handy for real-time fraud monitoring. It monitors emails, phone numbers, and IP addresses, and leverages machine learning to detect any suspicious activity.
3. Malware & Ransomware Attacks on eCommerce Businesses
Malware is malicious software used by hackers to exploit, disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to your Ecommerce website. Ransomware is a type of malware that locks you out of your critical systems until you pay the hacker to neutralize the threat.
Ransomware attacks have become pretty common in the retail and eCommerce industries. These attacks can harm business operations, resulting in massive financial losses, downtime, and loss of customer data. In a few cases, it has been seen that even providing the ransom does not guarantee the safe recovery of the data, hurting eCommerce security big time.
Solution: How to Secure Your Online Store from Malware?
Anti-malware is a software program that identifies, removes, and stops infectious software from infecting the computer and other IT systems. Since malware is the umbrella term for all sorts of infections, such as viruses, worms, Trojans, etc., having an efficient Anti-Malware at your disposal makes sense.
On the other hand, Anti-Virus is software that comes in handy to keep highly influential viruses at bay, ensuring robust eCommerce security. Wads of Anti-virus software have now evolved to prevent infections from other malware too. Securing your computer and other complementary systems using an Anti-Virus keeps these infections in check.
4. Social Engineering & Phishing Scams Targeting Shoppers
It is a type of confidence trick to coax people into divulging confidential information. For example, phishing techniques are used against reputed Ecommerce brands luring them into a fake business platform to steal their credit card or login details. Apart from cheating consumers, the technique also puts a brand’s reputation or goodwill in harm’s way.
One of the considerable issues is that a successful phishing attempt may translate into a significant data breach that leads to the sharing of access credentials on the dark web. A successful phishing attempt also indicates a malware infection, which is one of the prominent security threats in eCommerce. Thus, if you do not deploy appropriate security processes and systems, these attacks can’t be identified. Cybercriminals can buy lists of usernames and passwords and employ bots to impact a credential-stuffing attack, striving to get unauthorized access to one or more sites.
Solution: How to Detect & Prevent Phishing Attacks?
To deal with unauthorized use of credit cards, the first thing you need to do is analyze transactions for suspicious patterns, like several failed payments from various cards linked to the same IP address. The second tactic you can apply is to implement velocity checks to identify several transaction attempts in a short timeframe, which indicates the unauthorized use of credit cards.
The third method you can rely on is utilizing extra authentication techniques, such as 3D Secure for online transactions to establish the authenticity of the cardholder. Last, but not least, limit the number of payment attempts allowed from one account or IP address to minimize the impact of brute force attempts and ensure strong eCommerce security.
5. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks in eCommerce
Though this type of cyberattack doesn’t impact your whole website but exposes customer data on that page to malware and phishing. How does it work? XSS manipulates a vulnerable website by planting malicious code into its webpage, thus making the website vulnerable to security threats in e-commerce.
And facing such eCommerce security threats can also affect the overall reputation of your online brand. An attacker can ruin a corporate website by modifying its content, thus, tarnishing the image of the organization or spreading misinformation. A hacker can also modify the instructions given to users who visit the eCommerce website, misdirecting their behavior intentionally. Users experiencing such a situation is not a good sign if the target is a government website that offers important resources in times of crisis.
Solution: How to Mitigate XSS Vulnerabilities?
HTTPS protocols not only keep your users’ sensitive data safe and secure but also boost your site rankings on Google search pages. They do so by securing data transfer between the servers and the users’ devices. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure there are no SSL/TLS errors on your site and to promptly resolve any errors that occur to maintain a secure website.
Please remember that some web browsers will block users’ access to your site if such protocols are not integrated. Also, you should ensure to have an updated SSL certificate from your host to be rest assured of having solid eCommerce security solutions.
6. DoS & DDoS Attacks: How They Disrupt eCommerce Websites
Denial of Service (DOS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) make your Ecommerce website unstable by overloading it with requests, thus disrupting its operations. It mostly occurs during peak times, like Black Friday. One of the signs of DOS attacks is degrading network performance. Besides, you also see a high volume of email spam or website downtime.
For example, you can think of a crowd flooding the entrance of a physical store, making it infeasible for real consumers to enter. A DDoS attack is similar as it maliciously overwhelms a website with an increase in traffic from various devices, like a botnet, which is usually a network of compromised computers. This flood of traffic damages the system, preventing genuine users from accessing the service and compelling website administrators to implement robust eCommerce security solutions.
Solution: How to Defend Against DoS/DDoS Attacks?
To safeguard against DoS and DDoS attacks, you can apply these strategies. First, create redundancy in your network infrastructure to manage excessive traffic and maintain continued service even during an attack. In addition to that, you can also use scalable web-based services that can soak up and allocate high traffic loads during a DDoS attack.
Besides, you can also block traffic from areas that are not suitable for your business and are familiar sources of DDoS attacks. Lastly, leverage Content Delivery Networks to distribute content delivery load and soak up DDoS traffic. These are some of the eCommerce security trends that you can adopt to deal with DoS and DDoS attacks.
7. SQL Injection: A Major Threat to eCommerce Databases
This kind of cyberattack takes place when hackers employ your unprotected SQL server database to write and inject their queries. The impact of SQL injection on an organization can be far-reaching. A successful attack may lead to unauthorized viewing of user lists, the erasure of the whole tables, and sometimes the attacker gaining administrative rights to a database, all of which could uncover significant eCommerce security gaps. When estimating the potential cost of an SQL injection, it is necessary to factor in the loss of customer trust if personal information, like phone numbers, addresses, and credit card details gets stolen.
Solution: How to Secure Your Database from SQL Injection?
Effective firewalls steer clear of suspicious networks, XSS, SQL injection, and the rest of the cyber-attacks that are constantly hitting headlines. They also assist in controlling traffic to and from your cloud-based store to ensure the passage of only reliable traffic and contribute to eCommerce security to a great extent.
8. API Attacks: Emerging Risks for eCommerce Platforms
Since an Ecommerce architecture involves extensive use of APIs, it becomes an easy target of cyberattacks. An API attack refers to the malicious usage of API from automated threats, like access violations. There is always a lingering threat of malicious API usage and data breaches under such circumstances. Unfortunately, it results in massive data losses and service disruption for an Ecommerce website.
Solution: How to Strengthen API Security?
A few methods can easily mitigate the risk of API attacks. First up, implement Multi-Factor Authentication to add an extra layer of security, making it difficult for attackers to gain unauthorized access to your Application Programming Interfaces even if they are aware of your login credentials. Beyond this, you can make the most of powerful authentication methods, like OAuth or JWT (JSON Web Tokens) to make sure that only authorized users access the APIs.
Additionally, you can restrict the number of API requests allowed from one IP address within a particular time frame. This makes it almost infeasible to perform brute force attacks. Above all, you can lock user accounts temporarily post a certain number of login attempts fail to deter continuous guessing of credentials and prevent security threats for eCommerce.
9. Brute Force Attacks: A Gateway to Unauthorized Access
This sort of cyberattack involves hackers frequently using different passwords to guess the right one eventually. They count on automated scripts to make up your password by bringing together letters, numbers, and characters until the right password is known. Such attacks on eCommerce security entail repeated, automated login attempts to gain unauthorized access to user accounts. Attackers can use brute force to attack your administrator panel, find your password, and misuse your account to steal information. Automated tools help in trying out hundreds of thousands of combinations to discover your website’s passwords.
Solution: How to Prevent Brute Force Attacks?
The solution to this attack is ensuring that your eCommerce website is protected with strong passwords that are hard to guess by hackers. Apart from that, limiting IP access is likely the best possible measure that you can implement to safeguard your login and admin pages from brute-force attacks.
Any requests that don’t generate from an approved IP address will lead to a 403 Forbidden response error or firewall block page. Shielding web pages using a website firewall is a breeze. For instance, when setting up a Sucuri Firewall, you’ll be asked if you want to limit access to admin pages to block unauthorized access from the rest of the IP addresses and ensure eCommerce security.
10. Malicious Bots: The Hidden Threat to eCommerce Security
One of the most harmful cybersecurity threats, bots are programmed to execute tasks automatically, like hacking sensitive data, indulging in fraudulent processes, or pricing scrapping. Besides that, security threats in eCommerce like aggressive scrapers and other bad bots often slow down the website or cause downtime. Poor performance and outages potentially compel a patron to go to another website within seconds and the conversion is eventually lost.
Peak times such as Black Friday, Cyber Week, Cyber Monday, or January Sales, when the number of users is at its peak, put a strain on the entire infrastructure. It is essential to perceive that any downtime in eCommerce is similar to lost revenue. Many eCommerce businesses fail to understand that bots play a crucial role in causing website availability and performance issues, requiring stringent eCommerce security solutions to deal with them.
Solution: How to Detect & Stop Malicious Bots?
Dealing with bot attacks requires a holistic approach that entails various strategies and techniques for solid protection against these malicious attacks. To put a stop to bot attacks, companies can take advantage of automated tools that can recognize and prevent bot traffic. When it comes to other eCommerce security solutions, web admins can integrate CAPTCHA software, which compels users to prove that they are human, making it extremely difficult for bots to navigate through the site.
Is Your eCommerce Platform Secure?
Lesser-Known eCommerce Security Threats in 2025
1. Supply Chain Attacks: A Growing Risk for eCommerce Businesses
Supply chain attacks are situations where some malicious actors break into systems through a partner or provider with access to a company’s networks and data. This type of attack is common across industries, especially eCommerce brands dependent on third-party services for multiple applications. An example of such eCommerce security threats is threat actors compromising a third-party payment processor to get access to customer data of an eCommerce site.
Solution: How to Strengthen Supply Chain Security?
To address this eCommerce security threat, the first thing you need to do is gauge open-source dependencies to prevent software supply chain threats. Scan GitHub repositories frequently to be informed about unintended leaks of secrets. Besides that, you can implement zero-trust policies, train your merchants properly, and expand your threat intelligence technology to third-party risks. Apart from that, you can also explore blockchain and Hyperledger technologies while ensuring compliance with new regulations, frameworks, and standards.
2. Third-Party Vulnerabilities: A Hidden eCommerce Risk
When it comes to eCommerce security threats, third-party vulnerabilities cannot be brushed aside. eCommerce companies usually cooperate with third parties for better performance and workflow optimization. High-efficient tools such as off-the-shelf APIs, website components, Google Analytics, and many more things as such enhance your eCommerce website.
Solution: How to Secure Third-Party Integrations?
If eCommerce security problems are growing after incorporating third-party tools, you must pay attention to data safety and governance concerns. If your partner can’t ensure safety, you might encounter cyber-attacks owing to their vulnerabilities. To safeguard your online activities and maintain confidentiality, factor in using a VPN free trial. This enables you to test the effectiveness of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) in protecting your data transmissions without instant commitment, providing an additional layer of security during third-party integrations.
To resolve such security threats in eCommerce, you need to protect your eCommerce site by mapping the service it uses. Also, learn who is gathering personally identifiable information (PII) and gauge the related risks. Fix problems directly with the merchant or discontinue the partnership.
3. Zero-Day Exploits: The Unpredictable Security Challenge
The next eCommerce security threat on this list is zero-day exploits. These are security vulnerabilities not known to software developers or merchants, which attackers can abuse to get unauthorized access to eCommerce websites, exploiting confidential information, like customer data and credit card details.
Solution: How to Stay Protected from Zero-Day Threats?
The first and foremost thing you can do to sort out this trouble is to establish different layers of security. Leverage incident response services that can quickly resolve and reduce the damage caused by such events. You can also get patch management abilities, carry out simulations, and perform tests.
4. Insider Threats: The Risk from Within Your Organization
Insider threats are another critical concern in eCommerce security as such threats originate from former & existing employees, business partners, contractors, and the rest of the individuals who may have access to sensitive data and IT systems. This poses considerable harm to the organization operating in the eCommerce sector.
Solution: How to Prevent Insider Security Breaches?
The best thing you can do to get rid of these security threats in eCommerce is to keep credentials to your instrumental assets. Ramp up accountability and control with the help of session monitoring and recording or deploying insider threat software. Make sure to offer holistic user training and set privileged access to confidential data.
Future of Cybersecurity: Emerging eCommerce Threats & Trends
Cybersecurity experts across the globe continuously research, investigate, and discover new threats and attack techniques. Below are some leading cybersecurity trends that we have observed of late and you may come across them down the line. Let’s discuss those eCommerce security trends:
APTs Expanding Their Attack Techniques in eCommerce
APTs stand for Advanced Persistent Threats are highly advanced, state-sponsored groups that target particular businesses or sectors to garner intelligence or disrupt operations. In 2024, these eCommerce security threats have shown an upsurged use of proximity-based and infrastructure-oriented attack methods. For example, the “nearest neighbor attack” saw APT 28 violating Wi-Fi networks by targeting devices close to their high-value targets. This physical closeness enabled the attackers to avoid certain technical security measures, specifically focusing on misusing an environmental vulnerability. Companies should take into consideration non-digital attack vectors and adopt zero-trust architectures that extend to the physical ecosystem. This method will be especially useful in fields, like finance, energy, and government.
Cyber Insurance & the Rising Demand for Security Assessments
The cyber insurance market has experienced many challenges, most importantly the issue of evaluating and pricing cyber risks because of the absence of historical data, the dynamic nature of cyber threats, and the potential for comprehensive and catastrophic losses. To simplify this issue, we expect cyber insurance providers to require or motivate their clients to undergo cybersecurity assessments as included in the underwriting process or the policy conditions. This could assist insurers in assessing the risk profile and premium of clients, and render them suggestions and guidance for strengthening their cybersecurity. These assessments can show the compliance of a website featuring eCommerce security trends with the cyber insurance policy needs or reduce their premiums by demonstrating their security maturity and use of best practices.
Attacks That Bypass Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
In 2024, Field Effect reported on a new adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attack which enabled malicious actors to block and manipulate interactions between two parties, usually without identification, to capture credentials and session tokens. This blockage allowed cybercriminals introducing security threats in eCommerce to bypass MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and get unauthorized access to accounts.
During our research, we came across a campaign where attackers made the most of Axio-based lookalike M365 login pages to collect credentials. Users were directed to such fraudulent pages, which proxied authentication requests, acquiring passwords and multi-factor authentication codes. The threat actors then took advantage of the Axios HTTP client to log into M365 accounts, easily avoiding MFA. In addition to that, the growth of platforms, such as the Mamba MFA Phishing Kit which is a phishing-as-a-service tool, facilitated the process for cybercriminals to imitate AiTM attacks. In exchange for a small subscription fee, attackers comprising eCommerce security could capture authentication tokens, avoid MFA, and misuse M365 accounts.
Increased Cyber Targeting Beyond Traditional Endpoints
In 2024, cyber attackers moved their initial access focus from endpoint devices to significant network infrastructure, like firewalls, routers, and VPN gateways. There are a few reasons that this might be the case:
- Network infrastructure is patched less frequently compared to endpoints and is expected to run obsolete and vulnerable software.
- Attackers know that several businesses, including websites prioritizing eCommerce security, focus on safeguarding their endpoints more than their network, cloud apps, and other aspects of the threat surface.
The ArcaneDoor campaign is one example of this increase, where state-funded cyber criminals targeted perimeter network devices from various merchants. Targeting edge devices like switches, firewalls, and routers are famous among threat actors looking for initial access to targets of interest. Control of these devices could empower malicious actors to track and reroute traffic, get credentials that could give access to more sensitive systems and accounts, or launch Adversary-in-the-Middle attacks. Cyber attackers are aware of this, and we expect to see a surge in the targeting of these services, especially those managing highly valuable data that can be utilized for extortion or to ease financial fraud.
For the unversed, an endpoint device is any device that joins a network and can exchange data with it. Some examples of such devices are desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, servers, workstations, virtual machines, printers, POS terminals, and IoT devices like cameras, lighting, and refrigerators.
Best Practices to Strengthen Your eCommerce Security
- Make sure that your website is created using closed-source code. Potential hackers won’t view or modify the source code of your website.
- Protect your website with complex passwords virtually impossible to be cracked open by hackers.
- Use a trusted firewall and install antivirus and antimalware software. Add multilayer security measures to your website.
- Make use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect customer purchases and prevent data loss.
- Regularly backup sensitive and crucial data to reduce lead time to total recovery
- Use HTTPS for an extra layer of safety on your Ecommerce website. However, keep it at a minimum, as most browsers block webpages not using HTTP protocol.
- Set up a failover system with one or more redundant installations. You can switch to backups of your systems or data when the primary web store is down.
- Routinely review third-party integrations so that you can remove the obsolete or unwanted ones. It will help you minimize the threat of third parties trying to access your data.
Protect your software or app from cyberattacks with expert-driven solutions designed to keep your business secure and operational.
Protect Your eCommerce Business with Expert Cybersecurity Solutions
As ecommerce businesses continue to thrive, the level of cyber-attacks on online stores is also increasing. This leaves no doubt that the value of security on ecommerce websites is crucial for businesses to operate smoothly without encountering data breaches, financial losses, or other unwanted consequences from cybersecurity threats. Adopting cybersecurity best practices for businesses can help protect against these risks and ensure ongoing success.
Having robust security measures or following best practices for eCommerce security in place is also essential to prevent damage to the online reputation of an Ecommerce brand post data breach. Sadly, in the age of technological advancements, hackers have grown more advanced. For them, hacking any website that seems even remotely vulnerable is a piece of cake.
Under such circumstances, online retailers need to proactively implement security measures to handle any possible cyber threats effectively. Binmile is one of the trusted software development companies that can help you get comprehensive security for your Ecommerce website. We have been serving enterprise Ecommerce platforms with futuristic software solutions meant to transcend their growth and profitability. Schedule your call with our expert to build a powerful Ecommerce security solutions that will help you operate your business operation unhindered by any security threats.
Frequently Asked Questions
Security breaches significantly impact e-commerce businesses by disrupting operations, damaging reputation, and incurring financial losses. Hackers accessing sensitive customer data or payment information can lead to fines and compliance penalties. Trust erosion among customers results in reduced loyalty and declining revenue.
Key impacts include:
- Financial Losses: Fines, legal costs, and recovery expenses.
- Customer Trust Erosion: Loss of loyal customers and reduced new user acquisition.
- Operational Disruptions: Downtime and delayed service restoration.
- Reputational Damage: Negative publicity and long-term brand harm.
To prevent these risks, e-commerce businesses must prioritize robust security measures and proactive threat management.
You should continuously monitor and update your security measures. Conduct regular security audits, install updates promptly, and stay informed about the latest threats and solutions in cybersecurity.
eCommerce security hinges on three critical pillars that work together to protect your online store:
- Data Security: Safeguard customer information through encryption, secure storage, and regular data backups. This ensures that sensitive data is protected from breaches.
- Transaction Security: Implement secure payment gateways, PCI-DSS compliance, and two-factor authentication to secure financial transactions.
- Customer Trust: Build trust by displaying security badges, clear privacy policies, and maintaining transparency about data use. Trust is the foundation of a secure shopping experience.
Focusing on these pillars creates a robust, secure environment for your eCommerce business.
Strengthening your online store’s security is crucial for protecting both your business and your customers. Here are key steps you can take:
- Update Regularly: Keep your website’s software, plugins, and security patches up to date to close vulnerabilities.
- Use Strong Passwords: Implement strong password policies and consider using password managers to ensure robust access control.
- Enable HTTPS: Secure your site with SSL certificates to encrypt data exchanged between your store and customers.
- Monitor Activity: Regularly monitor your website for suspicious activities and employ firewalls and security plugins for real-time protection.
