Manufacturing businesses have unique needs when it comes to website security. Our first article about manufacturing website security discussed some of the more obvious recommendations that even a small manufacturer would need. This second article goes into detail about some considerations that larger manufacturers require.
With so many other challenges occurring in the manufacturing landscape, from tariffs to supply chain impacts, your website shouldn’t be an additional source of worry.
At WordZite, we have experience working with manufacturing companies in heavy industry, and we know how to navigate the security challenges that these types of business models face – without cutting into your ability to reach new clients and turn a profit.
Is your manufacturing website up-to-date in terms of website security best practices? Read on to learn about some common issues and opportunities, and how to ensure that your website is robustly protected.
Manufacturing Websites – Common Website Security Considerations
Every organization is unique, and your specific website needs may vary depending on the size and scope of your organization and the products you sell. In our work with manufacturing companies, we’ve noticed a few patterns for issues that are often top-of-mind for these types of companies.
1. Mixed businesses models
Many manufacturers maintain both wholesale and direct-to-consumer lines of business. This means that the company’s website needs to accommodate two distinct audiences, as well as potentially having two separate purchase portals; an ecommerce shop for consumers looking to purchase small amounts of product, and a portal for bulk sales and/or ongoing supplier relationships.
A wholesale operation may only need a landing page or a contact form for businesses to reach out and discuss B2B sales directly with a representative. Ecommerce websites, on the other hand, present their own set of security and upkeep challenges. Inventory management, customer relations, and payment processing are all considerations for businesses setting up an ecommerce portal.
2. Third-Party App Integrations
Integration with 3rd party applications such as Customer Relationship Managers (CRMs) and Enterprise Resource Planners (ERPs) are a big deal for manufacturers. As mentioned above, many manufacturing businesses deal with at least 2 distinct customer streams – wholesale customers and ecommerce customers. Regardless of how your customers are bucketed, chances are you have a lot of them, and that means a lot of data. Customer names, addresses, contact information, payment information – all of that information needs to be securely managed in a way that is both compliant with legal requirements, and that lets you use it productively and efficiently to fulfill orders and market to your customer base.
Third-party applications are managed by their own development and maintenance teams. You won’t necessarily know all the ins-and-outs of exactly how the technology works, which is why it’s important to vet any apps that your website interacts with. You need your own safeguards in place to protect your business in the unlikely event that a 3rd party application has a breach. And you should ensure you have a regular point of contact should anything go wrong – it can mean the difference between an issue being quickly resolved, and an issue that causes a significant disruption for your website and your sales.
3. Data Tracking and Handling
Taking the right steps to integrate technologies like CRMs and ERPs is crucial for your manufacturing business website. A properly integrated CRM can mean the difference between efficiently filling orders, balancing production, inventory, and sales – and losing orders, missing out on conversion opportunities, or finding your inventory management out of balance.
Integrating the above customer and resource management technologies is vitally important for properly tracking user data and differentiating between different customer types, as well as middle-men and distributors. Personal data from each type of user may need to be handled differently depending on local and federal legislation. Keeping track of all of this manually may be more than one web developer or marketing coordinator can handle. So you may need to consider outside support. Regardless, leveraging a secure, properly-integrated CRM or ERP can help you keep track of all that data and automate the process of storing, retrieving, and deleting it in accordance with privacy laws.
4. International Audiences
Tariffs and trade tensions may lead your business to explore new international markets, or invest in additional marketing and sales in different jurisdictions. Payment gateways that can handle multiple currencies are crucial for providing international customers with a seamless experience, but these types of gateways require additional app integrations.
Website language translations to serve different markets also require additional services and website plugins. If you’re utilizing a translation service, you may need to consider different backend access controls for native speakers to do manual translations of your website content. These are features that are easily deployed on simple websites but have layers of complexity when you are integrating both multi-currency and multi-language functions into a site along with various data handling and privacy compliance needs. It gets complicated fast. You may want to consider some outside support if you or your team are in over their head.
5. 2FA, Access Control and Firewalls
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – using 2 Factor Authentication for all your website admin logins is extremely important for ensuring that login credentials aren’t stolen or inadvertently leaked to bad actors or hackers.
A manufacturing business website is complex, and will necessitate contributions from multiple individuals with different expertise. You need 2FA to secure multiple user profiles, in addition to having policies in place to determine each admin user’s level of access. Properly setup access controls gives you the ability to determine which users have access to which areas of the site and what they can and can’t do within those areas. In other words, you don’t want everyone setup as an administrator with full access to everything and full permission to add, edit and delete content, images, products, resources and more from your site.
Firewalls are critical in today’s environment that sees more and more AI-powered bots attempting to breach websites. A well-configured firewall helps to protect all the files and folders on your server. It will block bad actors from finding a way into gated content or documents that may be stored there. The best firewalls will even pre-emptively block known bad actors or throttle (aka. rate limit) suspicious behaviour that may be a precursor to a DDoS attack. The best firewall products have dedicated teams that are constantly developing deterrents and measures to help protect all of the websites within their network. So, it’s never a bad decision to adopt a firewall product that has a large rate of adoption within the WordPress community.
All of the above is important if your website houses information about B2B sales and supplier relationships – you don’t want to be the pathway to another business having their information stolen or accessed by unauthorized parties.
6. Thought Leadership and Compliance
You know your industry, and you want to position yourself as a leader in that industry. So, you need to be able to post content, press releases, news, etc in a way that allows it to be reviewed, edited and approved before going live. Now, this can be tricky with a default WordPress install especially if you have non-technical stakeholders that want to review content via a link without having to login and jump through a bunch of hoops. A well structured content approval process is essential. This will allow a copywriter to interview a knowledge expert, draft content, send it to various stakeholders for review and approval prior to publishing it. This may seem easy. But, it can get complicated in larger organizations with multiple departments each with one or more thought-leaders contributing content into a marketing department that itself has a number of initiatives on the go. A clean process ensures proper approval prior to publishing.
If You’re Unsure…Please Contact Us
Manufacturing websites face a complex blend of security challenges—from managing ecommerce portals and third-party integrations to handling sensitive customer data and supporting multilingual, multi-currency capabilities. Without proper safeguards like 2FA, access controls, and robust firewalls, these sites risk becoming vulnerable entry points for cyberattacks. So, if you feel unsure about anything we’ve mentioned here, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
At WordZite Security Inc., we specialize in protecting manufacturing companies from these growing threats by implementing tailored, enterprise-grade WordPress security solutions that don’t compromise usability or performance. If your website plays a vital role in your business operations, don’t leave its security to chance. Contact us today or book an audit and get peace of mind.