In the last few years, more and more people have begun to use WordPress for their websites. This is great because it means that WordPress eCommerce plugins are becoming increasingly popular but that might open security doors you wouldn’t previously have had. Securing your website codebase is important, but if you accept any type of payment from users you need to have a secure payment gateway to run all your transactions through.
One of the most important aspects of an online business is security and privacy – so WordPress membership and eCommerce websites should be using secure payment gateways. Some payment gateways are more secure than others so you need to be methodical when choosing those you wish to use.
Payment Gateways
Payment gateways can offer a number of different types of security for WordPress websites. The most important thing to look out for is whether the payment gateway processes your payments off-site or on-site and whether it offers secure data encryption.
You can keep this data secure by encrypting with SSL certificates which provide 128bit encryption, but we recommend taking advantage of 256-bit security where possible such as Verisign’s True Site Certificates – they’re quick easy to install and maintain with auto-renewals every year.
Why are SSL certificates this important?
SSL certificates are important to have a secure payment gateway for your online business. You should always ensure all information about your users (including credit card numbers) is encrypted and not stored in plain text on or offsite at any time.
A few examples are Stripe which uses SSL encryption and eWAY that has PCI DSS certification so you know they take their security measures seriously. Ensuring your WordPress membership website takes all possible precautions when taking money from users will mean less chance of being hacked in the future by cybercriminals.
PayPal also uses a secure transaction encryption SSL data protection PGP key authentication strong password policy two-factor authentication anti-phishing email address verification automated backups daily system scans malware detection 24/24 hour support cybercrime division, staff.
Paypal and Stripe and the most popular, but here is a list of the top used by WordPress payment gateways that you can explore:
1) PayPal
2) Stripe
3) AuthorizeNet
4) Braintree
6) Worldpay
8 ) Mollie
PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net are some of the most popular and secure WordPress payment gateways that you can use for your WordPress membership or eCommerce website. These offer the best levels of security so should be used by all online businesses who process payments to their users. Ensure you take advantage of them if possible!
What payment gateways do you use for your websites and why?
We are not using WordPress as our Provisioning and Sales platform. Being in the USA, in the first decade, we used Authorized Net with a 3rd party payment service, it started getting extremely expensive (due to all the “Free Mileage” and “browny” points, we started paying on AVERAGE over 6%).
We moved to Stripe long ago and haven’t looked back.
All those years we also offered PayPal as an option, but only recently due to their rate changes, other technical issues, we dropped PayPal.
Now, for our clients that set up WooCommerce (and other eCommerce), we do encourage them to use Stripe mainly because that is what we are experienced with.