We have almost reached that time of the year, marking the unofficial kick-off to the holiday shopping season and well-known for incredible deals and a shopping frenzy. 

At the same time, Black Friday is also a prime time for cyberattacks. Hackers know that businesses will be experiencing high volumes of traffic and transactions, and they may try to exploit vulnerabilities to steal customer data or disrupt operations.

If you are a business owner, it is important to take steps to protect your cloud-based systems and data during the Black Friday season and in this blog post we are covering a few key factors you would like to consider:

DDoS Protection to Avoid Overloading Website Resources

DDoS attacks (Distributed denial of service) attempt to disrupt the regular load of a targeted server by overloading it with a higher number and frequency of requests than it could handle. Through a DDoS attack a website could become unavailable to legitimate users which may bring a number of negatives such as reduced sales, loss of good reputation, and many more. 

If you’re expecting a high volume of traffic on Black Friday, it is important to have DDoS protection in place. This will help to mitigate the impact of an attack and keep your website and servers running smoothly.

Invest in a cloud-based DDoS protection service that filters incoming traffic, identifying and blocking malicious requests while allowing legitimate traffic to flow through, and also has enabled a load balancing option for incoming traffic distribution. 

24/7 Monitoring of Your Website and Resources

Continuous monitoring of your cloud infrastructure is essential to detect and respond to security threats in real-time. Implementing a robust monitoring system can help you identify any unusual activity or suspicious traffic patterns as well as unauthorized access attempts.

Look for a monitoring solution for your website that enables a prompt response in case your website or any critical service is down and offers additional benefits such as:

• Regular checks from multiple server locations
• Checks of any service you are running
• Option to notify selected users in case a potential issue is detected and allow for instant reaction

Managed Firewall as a First Line of Defense

The CloudScale365 Managed Firewall service plays a crucial role in helping companies prepare for high-traffic events like Black Friday. With its robust firewall protection, it shields businesses from the increased risk of cyber threats and data breaches that often accompany such peak sales periods. By proactively monitoring and filtering network traffic, this service ensures that a company’s online infrastructure remains secure and available during surges in online traffic, enabling uninterrupted shopping experiences for customers and safeguarding vital e-commerce operations. Additionally, its adaptable security measures can be fine-tuned to match the specific needs of individual companies, offering a tailored solution to fortify their digital presence during critical sales events like Black Friday.

You would find a variety of offerings on the market, but pay attention to those firewall solutions that come with end-to-end support and a holistic approach towards your online security and protection.

SSL/TLS Encryption to Secure Your Payments

If you are processing payments on your website, it is important to use SSL/TLS to protect your customers’ financial data. You should also use SSL/TLS to protect any other sensitive data that is transmitted between your website and your users, such as login credentials and personal information. 

Beware that different types of SSL certificates exist depending on the size of your online business and the level of protection you would like to secure. While for smaller websites it might be enough to use a domain validation (DV) SSL, enterprises that use more sensitive personal data need to enable extended validation (EV) certificates. 

Ransomware Protection

Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts your files and demands a ransom payment in exchange for the decryption key. It is important to have a ransomware protection plan in place, especially in the Black Friday period, when your business is more vulnerable to attacks. 

Your ransomware protection plan should include the following:

• Regular backups of your data
• A ransomware detection and prevention solution
• A plan for responding to a ransomware attack

Bonus Tips for Large-Scale Companies 

Larger organizations usually operate with a greater number of digital tools and platforms which makes them even more vulnerable to cyber attacks and reputation damage. It is highly recommended that such enterprises enable: 

• Disaster Recovery to Ensure Business Continuity

Disasters could occur at any time causing organizations to lose significant levels of reputation and costs. It is vital that they take proactive actions to deploy disaster recovery and backup plans and ensure minimal downtime, data loss, and disruption in case of a disaster event. 

• Third-Party Security Evaluation

If you are working with third-party vendors to provide cloud-based services to your customers, it is important to evaluate their security posture. This will help you to ensure that your customers’ data is being protected properly. Make sure you understand what cybersecurity measures they have in place, how often they audit them, and what is their plan to respond to a security breach. 

• High Availability and a Reliable Cloud Hosting Solution

A key major issue when it comes to Black Friday readiness is related to the hosting solution an organization is using. In addition to being well-secured, your hosting service must offer flexibility and scalability in order to handle the increased traffic load smoothly and offer the optimal cost vs. resources used for your organization at any time. 

As Black Friday approaches, the importance of cloud security cannot be overstated. Protecting your business and customer data is fundamental to maintaining trust and ensuring a smooth shopping experience. Get in touch with CloudScale365 and ask our experts for the right solution that will match your business needs and guarantee maximum security level for you and your clients online.