E-commerce is online sales functionality: product catalogs, shopping carts, payment flows, customer accounts, and order processing delivered through a website or app. Unlike a static site, it handles transactions and sensitive data, so it usually needs stronger operational controls, tighter change management, and more careful monitoring.
In cyber security, e-commerce matters because attackers often target the checkout path, admin panels, payment integrations, and account logins. Common threats include credential stuffing, carding, web skimming, and abuse of vulnerable plugins or extensions. Defenders reduce risk with secure hosting, patching, least-privilege access, multifactor authentication, logging, WAF rules, and regular testing of payment and account workflows. A site labeled “e-commerce” should be treated as a business system, not just a web page.