Security measure is probably one of the most important features in an e-commerce platform.

All e-commerce platforms attract hackers, viruses, and malware because of the ‘payment’ feature to complete a sale.

Even if the system does not directly process a credit card transaction and hence, the details of the customers, a compromised page can reroute customers to a false page.

Still, these platforms are working round-the-clock tirelessly to provide the best and security features for its customers.

A compromised site can have long-term consequences for the customers, as well as for the merchants.

Where customers might suffer financial loss and identity theft, merchants can lose their reputation, merchandise, and even threat of lawsuits.

So, it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone!

Except for the hackers.

This is a brief guide to outline the approach to improve the security of your Magento website.

The first step is to start off in the right direction.

And how can you do it?

Work with reliable hosting providers and solution integrators.

Verify that they have a secure software development life cycle.

And that they test their code for security.

Taking a lead on this, Google has updated its protocol and now uses HTTPs as a ranking factor.

For an existing extension or Magento version, make sure to keep it updated or upgrade it to run over to a securely encrypted, HTTPs channel.

However, it will take a lot of time and effort from your end.

You will need to create some new redirects from HTTP to HTTPs.

And all this energy and time spent to make it to HTTPs will make your website secure for the future.

Do it sooner, rather than later.

This is the most important aspect of ensuring the security of your store.

Protecting the environment means that keep your Magento protected.

Let me elaborate on it.

Keep all your software on the server up to date.

Apply security patches as soon as possible and as recommended.

Don’t do anything which is not recommended by the developer.

And this doesn’t just apply to Magento, but on all the software installed on the server.

Make sure that your server has no unnecessary software occupying space.

Also, make sure that the server operating system is secure.

Consider launching the entire site over secure communications protocol (SSH/SFTP/HTTPS) to manage files and disable FTP.

Magento has its own way to protect system files when using the Apache webserver.

It will include .htaccess files in it.

However, to .htaccess to perfectly sync, your server must be able to read .htaccess through the AllowOverride.

Use minimum and limited privileges for database account.

Try to use strong and unique passwords and try to change them continuously.

Closely keep an eye on the bugs or fixes that are reported by the software components used by the Magento installation.

Another important thing is that, restrict access by IP address.

Automate the interrelated activities, and if possible, use private keys for data transfer.

Limit access to the Magento Admin only. To do this, update the whitelist with the IP address of each computer.

Try to restrain yourself from installing extensions directly on the production server.

Another very important thing is that, use a two-factor authorization for Admin logins.

Verify your server to make sure that there are no deployment leftovers, such as log files, publicly visible .git directories, scripts, dumps, or any

unprotected files.

Discover suspicious patterns and use a Web Application Firewall.

You need to make sure that all the running applications are secure.

Always be careful to avoid any running software on the same server that is hosting your Magento.

Lastly, update your software as often as possible and apply patches where appropriate.

Admin Desktop Environment

All the above-mentioned recommendations were focusing on the server and on applications installed.

Although it plays an important role to protect your data and minimize risks, making sure that even your computer is secure, is really important.

Hence, make sure that the computer is secure and protected that has access to the Magento’s Admin.

Try to restrain yourself from clicking suspicious and spam links on the internet. It will only bring trouble, not a hidden “cash prize” by just clicking

links.

Always use powerful and efficient antivirus software, if your in-built antivirus is not working, somehow.

Use a secure password to operate the computer which has access to the Magento server.

Your effort of protecting and securing Magento will go in vain if you didn’t protect Magento itself.

It doesn’t matter how secure your password is or how many antiviruses have you installed in your computer if your Magento itself would give in.

Therefore, protecting and securing everything starts with powerful passwords but, it will end with securing Magento itself.

1. The first step is to update your Magento to ensure that it has all the latest security patches and enhancements.

2. Install and update all the new product releases.

3. Always use a unique, customer Admin URL instead of the most commonly used, default “admin” or even more commonly used “backend” or

“frontend”.

4. Restrict or even better, block access to any development, staging, or testing systems.

5. Core and directory or log files should always be set to read-only to protect it from unauthorized changes. Therefore, use the correct file

permissions.