Admin
Magento is one of the world’s biggest and most prominently placed platforms catering to ecommerce businesses. It is used by these businesses to not only build their webstores from the ground up, but to also manage them too.
Hacks and cyber-attacks in their many forms come at a price for businesses. That price ranges from slight disruptions to operations to more comprehensive and serious issues of leaked customer financial data and other sensitive information. The knock-on effect of these attacks being successful is not only the direct financial effects on your business, but damages to your reputation and credibility.
With all this in mind, it’s important that you take security seriously and to help you understand what can be done to protect your Magento-based webstore, we have put together a list of tips to improve the security and safety.
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Always Update Magento When Prompted
Similarly, to the fact that you should always update the anti-virus software and other software you use with your own computer to ensure the most current known threats are tackled, you need to do the same with the version of Magento you are using.
The company releases updated versions of their software on a frequent basis, to cover bug patches and other more general maintenance. They also cover security fixes for those weaknesses that have been recently discovered.
While many users maintain updating as soon as possible to the newer versions of a piece of software can be more irritating than anything else, it really pays you dividends when you do it with Magento. With each new version, there are patch notes available, so you always have a clear explanation of what is being changed.
Another way to look at it is the fact that the patch notes point out the flaws older versions had, giving hackers the lowdown on weaknesses they may still be able to exploit on any webstores using older updates.
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Using Secure Passwords
Hackers and other cybercriminals literally make a living from figuring out and guessing passwords. That is why, it is so important to create strong passwords. You can do this by making sure you include upper- and lower-case letters, special characters and numbers in your password so it is as complex as possible.
You need to avoid the practice some people have of using the same password for all their accounts. Although it makes it easier for you to remember, it also makes it easier for criminals to access your accounts and potentially your sensitive business and personal information.
Lastly about passwords – you need to get into the habit of regularly changing them.
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Utilize an Encrypted SSL Connection
It’s imperative that you ensure the shopping experience your customers have is as secure as it possibly can be. One sure-fire way to ensure all data that is sent from and to a Magento site is secure is by utilizing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Encrypted connection. SSL allows secure connections from a web server to a browser. This certificate secures credit card transactions, data transfer and logins, and more.
Being in-demand EV SSL certificate carries the highest validation that protects from phishing attack. Users would easily know which site has EV SSL with company name.
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Once it is installed on browser, the green padlock logo with company name will be displayed in the web browser, meaning all your viewers will know that it is encrypted and safe to use.
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Avail Yourself of Two-Factor Authentication
It’s true that you can follow all the good practices of creating secure passwords, and they will still be cracked. Brute force attacks and phishing can, when successful, open a complete website to hackers with a bit of good fortune. That’s why along with a strong complex password, you should benefit from the use of a two-step authentication system too.
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Change the URL For Your Admin Panel
If hackers can get to your admin page, they will be better able to launch a brute force-style attack to find out the password for your login details. Yourdomain.com/admin is the standard URL assigned by Magento to your admin panel. Therefore, without changing this, hackers have a good starting point. So, change it to something unique to avoid giving them easy access.
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Set a Firewall to Stop Attempts at MySQL Injection
One of the most frequent and pervasive attacks on webstores are MySQL injections. When these are successfully attempted, they give the hackers the chance to have access to and tamper with all data related to your store. This means they can copy, disclose and even destroy data held about customers, void your business transactions and alter your balances, among many other things.
While there are steps Magento takes to stop this happening, you can use a Firewall to up your defence against these kinds of attacks.
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Set Restrictions on Admin Access
Further to changing the location of your admin page, you could also improve security by setting restrictions for access to the backend of your Magento website. Protect the admin path at a webserver level.
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Secure Magento Connect Manager
Although the Magento Connect Manager is one of the quickest ways to add extensions, it provides an easy and noted weak point for the hackers to perform brute force attack. You can protect it by changing the downloader path to making the way in more challenging for hackers.
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Secure the Important Local.XML File
Local.XML is one of the web files that should be secure at all costs for your Magento website. This is because it contains the encryption key and database credentials. Change local.XML and its file permissions to 600(-rw), it will limit its read and access. Also, block web access to your app directory.
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Choose a Great Hashing Algorithm
At one time, it was MD5 that was the best algorithm for creating passwords. Since those days though, computing power and technology in general have been enhanced. More effective algorithms you should consider include Tiger-192, Whirlpool and SHA-256.
At Last:
As ecommerce and Magento are an increasingly and consistently preferred target for hackers, it is important that your ecommerce website that utilizes Magento technology has the very latest and best security.
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