Security Seals for Brazilian E-commerces

Most Brazilian e-commerce websites display seals that assure the store’s security and quality of service. In this article we will look at the importance of security for e-commerce in Brazil and what seals are most commonly found on these websites.

Brazilian Customers Perception Towards Security in E-commerce

Multiple research points out the importance given to security measures of e-commerce transactions by Brazilian customers. A study by Fecomercio, the State of São Paulo Commerce Federation, found in 2013 that some of the main reasons why Brazilian customers do not make purchases in e-commerces was the risk of fraud and lack of security displayed by the store websites.

This apprehension for lack of security in online transactions and e-commerce purchases can be related to the usage habits of the Brazilian internet audience and the commonly found fraudulent e-commerce websites in the country.

Most Brazilian internet users do not take their machine’s security into consideration when browsing the web, being frequent targets of malicious software designed to detect and steal sensitive information such as the ones used in online purchases. Not only that, fraudulent online stores continuously pop up in the country, offering severely reduced prices and impracticable purchase conditions, features that attract a large portion of the Brazilian audience not used to these types of schemes.

This led to the creation of a number of security seals that assure the e-commerce companies good faith and legality, and also the protection measures implemented to secure sensitive information, as ways to foster confidence in the country’s consumers. Studies show that the display of these seals serve to increase conversion rates considerably, a factor that makes them an important part of e-commerce for companies operating in the Brazilian market.

Site Blindado

The Site Blindado seal refers to the adherence to the security suite provided by the Brazilian company of the same name, which is a portuguese term for Armoured Website. Site Blindado’s security services include:

• Web applications vulnerability analysis
• Public IP’s vulnerability analysis
• Extended SSL-EV Digital Certificate
• Malware detection for websites
• Network IP’s vulnerability analysis
• Application Firewall
• Manual security tests for website penetration

Site Blindado was founded in 2005 and is currently one of the most recognized companies in the cyber security sector in Brazil, offering their services to some of the biggest e-commerce websites in the country.

Norton Secured

Cyber security specialist Symantec’s brands of protection software are represented in the “Norton Secured, Powered by Symantec” seal found on various e-commerce websites in Brazil. The seal refers to the SSL certification services provided by the company, and can indicate the additional security and management services implemented by the website, such as:

• Malware scanning and vulnerability scanning
• Up to 256-bit encryption
• Agile ECC and DSA algorithms

The company claims that the Norton seal is the most recognized sign of cyber-security in the world, and also provides the seal to be displayed alongside the client’s website link in search engine results. The Verisign seal found, on some Brazilian websites, also refers to the Symantec authentication and security services.

Brazilian companies such as Certisign represent Symantec’s services in the country, offering their own brand of SSL certificates and security solutions along with their “Site Seguro” security seal commonly displayed on e-commerce websites.

E-bit Ranking

Brazilian e-commerce market intelligence and certificate provider E-bit offers a ranking seal that goes from Bronze, Silver and Gold to Diamond and represents the store’s reputation, quality of service and implemented security measures. Some of these parameters are gathered from consumer reviews and comments submitted to the company’s portal. The requirements for the Diamond Seal, found on some of the largest online stores in the country are:

• Gather over 1000 purchase ratings or reviews
• Have over 20 reviews referring to the delivery system
• Have less than 15% of delays in all deliveries
• Show more than 85% of consumers willing to shop again
• Have over 4 stars in their consumer rating index
• Operate with SSL certificates
• Guarantee security of consumer information
• Be part of E-bit for over 90 days

E-bit was founded in 2000 and offer their certificate services for free to e-commerce stores.

Clearsale

Brazilian fraud protection company Clearsale offer a security seal to e-commerce companies that subscribe to their purchase analysis services. Their solutions include a robust customer analysis system that makes use of multiple variables to determine the risk of fraud for purchases and offers a total cashback guarantee in cases of fraudulent transactions.

TrustSign

The Site Mais Seguro seal refers to a website’s subscription to cybersecurity specialist Trustsign’s vulnerability analysis solutions, which protects pages using daily scans based on over 50.000 known vulnerabilities and manual tests for public IP’s and web applications. According to Trustsign, their services are the only ones in Brazil compatible with the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures library of security vulnerabilities.

Other SSL Certification Providers

Brazilian e-commerce companies also commonly display security seals from various other EV SSL certification providers, which is the case for Digicert, which ensure the company’s identity and liability and also the encryption of sensitive data using their website’s connections.