Securing A Magento Store: Seven Tips For Keeping The Hackers Out

Hackers and online criminals consider eCommerce stores a juicy target. They store large amounts of personal information that can be used for identity theft. They provide access to shoppers who trust the store enough to enter their credit card details. And a hacked eCommerce store provides large amounts of bandwidth and processing resources. Among many platforms for construction of eCommerce store one of the best is Magento.

Magento stores are regularly probed by botnets looking for vulnerabilities. Magento is a secure application, but to keep it secure retailers have to follow a few simple guidelines.

Get Extensions From Trusted Sources

Magento Extensions are one of the best things about Magento. There are extensions to add almost any feature a retailer might need. But you should only install extensions from a trusted source.

An extension is a small program. When you install an extension, you bring code written by someone else into the heart of your store. That code has access to the Magento database and to shoppers’ browsers via code injected into the store’s pages. It can send information to third-party servers.

There are legitimate reasons for an extension to do all of these things; they wouldn’t work otherwise. But if you install an extension that contains malicious code, you are opening your store to security breaches and data theft.

Hackers inject malicious code into free and premium extensions and publish them online. They want Magento retailers to find and install them.

You can trust extensions from the Magento Marketplace as well asMageComp’s Extensions. Avoid installing extensions from anywhere else unless you are sure the source is trustworthy or you have carefully checked the code.

Use Two-Factor Authentication

Passwords can be stolen, and people often choose passwords that are easy to guess. Thousands of websites are hacked every month because of poor password choices.

Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of protection. When someone wants to log in to a store, they have to provide both their password and a short code sent to their mobile device. This verifies that they know the password and have access to the device, ensuring that they haven’t just stolen or guessed the password.

There are several TFA authentication extensions for Magento, including XTento Two-Factor Authentication, which is compatible with Magento 1 and Magento 2.

Limit Login Attempts

Criminals attempt to guess a Magento store’s passwords by repeatedly trying to log in. If you don’t have a good password they might guess correctly with enough opportunities. This brute force technique works surprisingly often, so it’s best to limit the number of times they can try.

Magento 2 includes a rate-limiting feature which can be accessed via the Stores -> Settings -> Configuration menu in the Admin sidebar. Choose Advanced -> Admin -> Security.

In the “Maximum Login Failures To Lockout” field, enter a number you are comfortable with. Don’t make it too low because users often mistype their password and you don’t want to lock out people for making a typo.

While you’re in this part of the Admin menu, you might want to consider removing the requirement to reset the admin password after a period of time. Forced password resets are no longer considered a security best practice and the FTC’s chief technologist argues that users should not be required to change their password regularly.

Of course, if there is a security breach on your store, you should change the admin passwords.

Update Your Magento Store And Apply Security Patches

Security patches fix vulnerabilities in Magento. Hackers use these vulnerabilities to compromise Magento stores. If you don’t patch, there is a strong chance of your store being compromised. Securing the vulnerabilities of your store can help you to a great extent to protect your store from hacking or any such events.

Regularly check the Magento Security Center for news about security patches, and install them as soon as possible.

Choose A Secure Magento Hosting Provider

Magento is only the tip of the iceberg: it depends on a deep and complex stack of software and hardware. Vulnerabilities in that stack can expose your Magento store.

A managed Magento hosting provider will tailor their platform to Magento’s security needs, using up-to-date versions of PHP and Apache, setting the correct file permissions, and providing a firewall tailored to Magento.

Magento is a secure eCommerce application, and by following the steps outlined above, you can ensure that it stays that way.

Ensure that your hosting provider has an automatic backup service in case you forget to manually backup your data

Take Regular Backups:

Make sure that your eCommerce store is Backed up Frequently. So that even after any Hacking incident damaging your data, you can swiftly retrieve your website’s backup from your hosting provider and can easily restore your website. Make sure to have a hosting provider who has automatic backup service in case if you forget about your backup.

Don’t store customer data you don’t need:

Avoid storing the unnecessary date that are not no-longer required. In order to avoid addon headache of customer liability issue in the event of a hack, it is advised not to store sensitive information if it is not mandatory.  Without a doubt it would be very difficult for any stores having subscription-base entry, but most of the stores should try to avoid storing any personal identification or payment information as hard as possible. By avoiding sensitive information on your Magneto store, you can Easily protect your customers from identity theft during the event of hacking on your store.

Following the above points, you can secure your Magento store to a vast leap from hacking or any other vulnerability which can be harmful for your customers. Secure Store is a trusted store and if your store is trusted then the loyalty of the customers towards your Magento store would be significantly great along with your sales.

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