As the retail industry falters with the rise of online space, eCommerce has emerged as the biggest beneficiary. In fact, some outlets like Business Insider has termed it the ‘retail apocalypse.’ Except for one major difference- eCommerce is a very peculiar business, with a much different business model than the stores you find around the street.
Even if we put all the complexities aside, two of their goals invariably standout- 1. Excellent user engagement; 2. Seamlessly handling the financial complexity behind the scene. In short, eCommerce business is like a fusion of entertainment and financial sectors- with the engagement and experience of first and the efficiency and security of the latter.
This is the reason why even eCommerce development services realize that creating aesthetic layouts and engaging features is no longer enough to satisfy customers. They want complete assurance that the personal and financial information they provide remain completely secure and the services they avail are also authentic. While Blockchain can be used for both the assurances, we will here to focus only on the first part- the customer.
But before we get started, it is worth mentioning that Blockchain does not provide privacy but relies on anonymity to offer the security it is known for. That is, others (attackers, if they come) can see the activities of the customers but can’t identify who they are. This takes a huge burden off the customers’ mind because they are most concerned with the leakage of personally identifiable information.
Trust
The Blockchain today is used by some of the largest financial institutions and it can be certainly assumed that what’s secure enough for them, is more than secure for everything else. So, even before eCommerce businesses actually start reaping the benefits of this technology, the mere knowledge of its use is guaranteed to boost the trust of customers, enabling them to engage with confidence.
Security
The two fundamentals of cybersecurity are confusion and diffusion. While confusion is created by complex encryption- upon which most of the modern systems rely, diffusion keeps data distributed. The problem is, no matter how complex, every encryption breaks at some point. The only feasible way to security is to make the cost of breaking that encryption higher than what attackers would gain from it.
Currently, if attackers break encryption, they get access to the entire database of companies- which is a major incentive. The Blockchain, however, diffuses the data over the entire network with separate encryption for each communication. Now, they would have to break millions of encryptions to get access to the same amount of data- which is virtually impossible. Thus, the system is not just secure but so secure that it discourages attackers from even trying to break it.
Fail-safe
Apart from the sound security, one of the most notable benefits that make Blockchain so appealing is that even if it is compromised, it doesn’t take the entire system down with it. Most of the cyber-attacks when successful, manage to steal millions of records and corrupt the entire systems- not because they are such good attacks but because most of the security systems are designed that way- with a central repository.
With Blockchain, even if the attackers manage to break the encryption- which in itself is a long shot, they won’t be able to do much damage because all the data is distributed across a global network and only a handful of systems will be compromised.
If still, you have any concern about eCommerce security, let’s connect with our skilled eCommerce developers.
