It’s Monday morning. You log into your e-shop and spot thousands of one-euro fake orders. That’s a tell-tale sign of a credit-card-testing bot. By noon, your payment provider has frozen payouts, and instead of shipping products you’re apologizing to customers and wrestling with chargebacks.
This scene is not rare. Almost half of Cypriot businesses were hit by a cyber-attack in 2023, and those that had to clean up the mess spent about €27.000 on average. [1] When personal data leaks, regulators often show up: the Data Protection Commissioner fined the Open University of Cyprus €45.000 after hackers stole student records, citing inadequate safeguards under the GDPR. [2]
Security is therefore not an optional chore; it protects both your revenue and your reputation. This guide covers four essential steps: solid backups, safe devices, secure hosting, and a basic grasp of the common attacks, so that Monday-morning panic stays a story you read about, not one you live through.
Step 1: Keep reliable backups
A solid backup is the big Undo button for your shop. If a hack or a bad update crashes your shop, you can rewind everything to yesterday’s clean state. Think of it as last night’s photo of every product, order, and setting. Without it you could spend days rebuilding your store by hand while sales are paused.
Good backups are not complicated. Keep them on three different locations: one on the server, one on your own computer, and one in the cloud. Busy shops should copy the database every hour; quieter shops can back it up daily and take a full-site snapshot each week. Make sure you keep some older backups too, for example a copy from three months ago. If attackers slip in quietly and lurk for weeks, you will still have a clean version, instead of a pile of poisoned backup files.
Spend ten minutes once a month testing your backup. Open a test copy of your site and see that everything loads correctly. This quick check turns a backup from a simple checkbox into a safety net you can rely on.
Step 2: Secure the devices you use to manage your e-shop
Your laptop and phone are the front doors to your store. If someone picks their locks, it doesn’t matter how strong the walls of your shop are because the thief is already inside. Start with the basics: make sure the operating system, the browser and any other important software are always up to date.
For each device you need to install a reputable antivirus app, turn on the built-in firewall, and apply full-disk encryption to keep malware and prying eyes away. Use strong, unique passwords saved in a password manager, and turn on two-factor authentication. With a six-digit code from your phone or a hardware key, stolen passwords alone won’t let anyone in.
If you are interested to know more about creating strong passphrases, read our guide “How to create strong passwords”.
Finally, be smart about where and how you connect. Avoid connecting to your e-shop from a public Wi-Fi; if you must login from a hotel or an airport, use a VPN. Set your devices to lock after a few idle minutes, and never share the admin account with anyone.
Step 3: Build a strong technology stack, starting with your web hosting
Your store runs on a server you don’t control. If the hosting provider isn’t secure, even the best safeguards on your site won’t protect you.
Pick a host that treats security like a core feature, not an add-on
Skip bargain shared plans where hundreds of unrelated sites share the same resources. Instead, look for a managed VPS or e-commerce-focused host that offers:
- 24/7 monitoring with strict account isolation – if a neighbor’s site gets hacked, yours stays sealed off.
- Reliable backups, on-site and off-site – automatic snapshots stored both on the server and in a separate location.
- ModSecurity (or another Web Application Firewall) active by default – blocks common exploits before they touch your website.
- Certified data centers (ISO 27001 or similar) – proof that the physical facility follows audited security standards.
If a hosting provider seems unbelievably cheap, assume that something essential, like security, has been left out.
Serve everything over HTTPS
Install a free Let’s Encrypt certificate, then redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS and switch on HSTS so browsers remember the secure route. If you use Cloudflare, open its SSL/TLS settings and set the mode to “Full (strict).” This ensures that Cloudflare talks to your server over a fully validated and encrypted connection, not just a half-secure shortcut.
Keep the application layer lean and current
Most hacks start with an out-of-date plugin. Uninstall anything you don’t use, stick to extensions that still get regular updates, and apply new versions during a weekly “maintenance hour”.
Restrict who can reach your admin area. If possible, allow only your own IP address; if not, rename the standard admin URL to something unique. Add a light CAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile to the login, registration, and checkout pages. Use long, unique passphrases for each admin account and turn on two-factor authentication, so a stolen password by itself is useless.
Select a secure payment plugin
Most platforms like WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Shopify etc, already hand card data to an external gateway, so your real job is to choose the safest gateway plugin and turn on every fraud-fighting feature it has:
- Use the official or highest-rated plugin. Check that it’s still getting updates and has thousands of active installs.
- Force 3-D Secure on every transaction. Even though it adds one extra step at checkout, it shifts fraud liability off your shoulders.
- Choose a gateway plugin that stores its API keys securely. Well-designed payment plugins encrypt or vault the keys behind the scenes, so sensitive credentials never sit in plain text inside your dashboard.
With a well-maintained gateway plugin, mandatory 3-D Secure, and strong anti-fraud safeguards, your checkout becomes a harder target that scammers would rather skip.
Monitor your shop activity closely
Set up alerts when logins surge, tiny orders pile up, or payment errors spike, so you spot trouble before your customers. When an alert is triggered, pause card payments automatically and leave safer options like Cash on Delivery or Bank Transfer running until you’ve checked the logs.
You can find plugins that can toggle gateways automatically under certain conditions or hire a developer that can do it for you.
Step 4: Know your enemy – the threats that keep shop owners up at night
Most online criminals aren’t masterminds. They recycle the same tricks year after year. Once you learn what those tricks look like, you can spot trouble early and let the protections you’ve already set up do their job.
1. Carding (credit-card testing)
What it looks like
A flood of €1 or “penny” orders that arrive in short periods of time. Bots are testing stolen card numbers to see which ones still work.
What’s at stake
Chargebacks pile up, payment providers panic and might block you, and real customers lose faith.
What to do
Use CAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile on your login, registration, and checkout pages. Set up alerts for relevant unusual activities, make 3-D Secure mandatory on every transaction and disable temporarily the guest checkout.
2. Magecart and other checkout “skimmers”
What it looks like
A hidden piece of JavaScript quietly copies card details as shoppers type them in. Nothing seems broken on your site, but weeks later customers report unauthorized charges.
What’s at stake
Stolen cards mean angry buyers, GDPR headaches and fines.
What to do
Keep your plugins updated, remove any you don’t use, and turn on file-integrity alerts so unexpected code changes get flagged. Add a strict Content Security Policy that allows scripts only from trusted domains. Finally, stick to official, well-maintained payment-gateway plugins.
3. Credential stuffing
What it looks like
Bots try thousands of email / password combinations stolen from other sites, hoping your customers or you reused them.
What’s at stake
Fraudsters can use customer wallets, use loyalty points and pile up chargebacks. If they crack a staff or admin account they can also alter prices, steal personal data, plant malware and leave you facing GDPR fines as well as a wrecked reputation.
What to do
Require everyone to use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for staff accounts. Rate-limit login attempts so repeated failures from the same source get blocked, and protect login pages with CAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile.
4. Phishing and social engineering
What it looks like
An email saying there’s a problem with a customer’s payment, but the link takes you to a fake login page that steals your password. Or someone calls pretending to be from your hosting company, saying they need your username and password to “fix an issue.”
What’s at stake
One slipped password hands the keys to your shop.
What to do
Use a password manager so you notice when a URL looks off, train yourself and any helpers to double-check unusual requests, and keep separate email addresses for admin alerts and public contacts.
5. Ransomware
What it looks like
All website files suddenly become unreadable and a ransom note appears demanding crypto for the decryption key.
What’s at stake
Your website goes offline completely, and you’re under pressure to fix it fast before you lose sales and customer trust.
What to do
Those offsite backups we mentioned earlier are your get-out-of-jail card. Regularly test restores, store at least one much older copy, and protect all of your devices that may connect to the server.
6. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
What it looks like
Your online store becomes very slow or stops loading completely because it’s flooded with fake traffic from thousands of devices.
What’s at stake
Real customers can’t access your site, orders stop coming in, and shoppers may give up and buy elsewhere.
What to do
Most managed hosting providers include basic protection against this kind of attack. If it happens often, consider upgrading to a hosting plan that can handle large traffic spikes automatically.
Security is never “finished”, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Reliable backups give you a quick reset when things go wrong, secure devices and a careful choice of web host lower the odds of a hack, and knowing the common attacks lets you spot trouble early. Put the above advice into action and you will already be ahead of most shops.
If you need a hand setting all this up, Proteasoft is here to help. Let’s make sure your next Monday morning starts with new orders and not problems.
Sources
- Cyprus Mail, “Nearly half of Cyprus businesses hit by cyberattacks, study shows,” 22 Dec 2023. https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/22/nearly-half-of-cyprus-businesses-hit-by-cyberattacks-study-shows/
- Cyprus Mail, “Open University fined for negligent cyber security after being hacked,” 28 Nov 2023. https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/11/28/open-university-fined-for-negligent-cyber-security-after-being-hacked
