How Cybercriminals Target Online Retailers in 2026

For many eCommerce businesses, security still sits behind growth, UX and conversion. That mindset is now actively risky.

Over the last decade, online retail has moved from being an occasional target for attackers to the primary one. What used to be a technical concern handled quietly by IT has become a commercial, reputational and regulatory issue that senior leadership can no longer afford to ignore.

This article is based on our podcast with Benjamin Hosack, co-founder of Turaco Labs, the security firm behind ThreatView, a specialist eCommerce threat detection platform used by retailers and payment providers alongside wider industry data and real-world forensic experience.

How the threat landscape quietly flipped

In the early days of online payments, large-scale breaches were relatively uncommon and rarely focused on pure eCommerce. Most investigations before 2012 involved physical retailers, hospitality chains or payment processors rather than online-only brands.

That balance changed decisively around 2015. From that point onwards, eCommerce overtook physical retail as the primary target for card data theft. Today, almost all payment card forensic investigations relate to online stores.

What’s most concerning is the speed of acceleration. According to threat monitoring data collected by Turaco Labs, monthly detections of compromised eCommerce websites increased nearly tenfold between 2023 and 2024, rising from approximately 5,000 to over 41,000.

Source: Turaco Labs

Why attacks are harder to spot than ever

For much of the last decade, the dominant technique was the digital skimmer. These attacks inject malicious JavaScript into the checkout process, silently copying card details in the customer’s browser. To the shopper and the retailer, everything appears normal.

What has changed recently is how that malicious code is delivered. Since early 2024, attackers have increasingly moved to so-called “loaders”. Instead of placing the skimmer directly on the site, a small loader script is injected which dynamically pulls malicious code from an external source at runtime.

This matters because many traditional security tools struggle to detect these loaders. The malicious script itself lives elsewhere, changes frequently, and often looks different every time it is loaded. As a result, sites can appear clean while actively leaking payment data.

Why smaller retailers are now the main target

Large enterprises invest heavily in layered security, continuous monitoring and incident response. Most small and mid-sized retailers simply don’t.

Attackers have adapted accordingly. Today’s compromises affect businesses running open-source platforms, self-managed hosting and limited security tooling. These sites are easier to access, slower to detect issues and less likely to contain breaches quickly.

From a criminal’s perspective, it’s a numbers game. Compromising thousands of smaller merchants is often faster and safer than attacking one heavily defended enterprise.

Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/28878/expected-cost-of-cybercrime-until-2027/?srsltid=AfmBOorZ_huISpcNNex0oYiQEAJni1tLDoHgx4WLq6dZ9JhB6LDcYRD_

Platform choice doesn’t remove risk

Open-source platforms, such as Magento or WooCommerce, often get blamed when breaches occur. In reality, the software itself is rarely the root cause. Vulnerabilities are typically patched quickly, but many sites remain unpatched, poorly configured or inconsistently maintained.

The issue is operational, not architectural.

SaaS platforms like Shopify reduce certain risks, but they are not immune. Most compromises on hosted platforms come through the supply chain: third-party apps, marketing scripts, analytics tools or browser-side injection at checkout. As platforms open up more customisation options, the attack surface naturally increases.

There is no platform where security can be ignored entirely.

Why PCI compliance isn’t enough

A common misconception is that PCI compliance equals protection. It doesn’t.

PCI DSS defines minimum standards. It does not actively detect live attacks, monitor checkout scripts in real time or alert you when malicious code appears. New PCI 4.0 requirements, such as mandatory script monitoring, exist precisely because attackers moved faster than earlier controls allowed.

In practice, many retailers only discover an issue when a bank or card scheme contacts them. By then, the damage is already done.

The true cost of a security breach

The obvious costs are painful enough: paying for a PCI forensic investigation, emergency remediation work to secure the site, potential assessments or penalties from payment providers, and legal exposure linked to customer data compromise.

The less visible costs are often worse. Mandatory customer notifications erode trust. Conversion rates dip. Brand damage lingers long after the technical issue is resolved. Even when handled well, recovery takes time and money.

Compared to that, the cost of continuous monitoring is negligible.

Prevention is now commercial risk management

Any retailer accepting card data on-page should treat continuous monitoring as essential infrastructure rather than a “nice to have”.

Modern protection means watching what runs in the customer’s browser, detecting unauthorised script changes and identifying new malware patterns before banks or card schemes do. Early detection turns a potential crisis into a contained incident.

That shift - from reacting to breaches to preventing them - is where the real value now lies.

Security is no longer about whether something might happen. The data shows it is about when, how quickly you detect it, and how little damage you allow it to cause.