Do these immediately for an improved prestashop store security

Do These Immediately For An Improved Prestashop Store Security

PrestaShop is a well known and freely accessible eCommerce platform to start your online business. It is used by small to large brands for carrying out their eCommerce business without any problem. However, when it comes to security for the eCommerce stores, you as a web store owner must meet some basic requirements both on software and non-software fronts.

On an eCommerce site, your duty is not just to protect your web-store from hackers but also the sensitive customer information. For example, web-stores must use the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards(PCI DSS) for processing of credit card data of the customers. These are some basic requirements and also the responsibility of the web-store owners to maintain a good reputation by adopting the best security measures.

In this article, I am going to enlist some serious steps you must take to protect your Web-store from hackers and other security breaches.

1. The Admin User Name and Password Selection A fool proof admin user name and password is your sole responsibility. You don’t want hackers to guess your credentials and easily break into your admin panel to access it like they are roaming in the garden.

Choosing strong, unique, and complex admin credentials will help you prevent your admin panel from unauthorized access. Choose a password that cannot be easily guessed by anyone. PrestaShop allows you to choose a password with an irregular combination of upper case characters, lower case characters, symbols,

and numbers. You can make some really complex passwords using these combinations.

You can also take help of online password generators who can suggest you some really good passwords. However, you must not exactly use the same password as suggested by the tool for safety purposes. Use a slightly different version of the suggested password.

2. Use two step verification to login to your admin panel A two step verification would give your admin panel an extra layer of security that is very hard to break. With two step verification you can set up a mobile verification process where the access to the admin panel would be set to get verified with the user’s mobile number.

The user after entering the correct admin panel credentials would be prompted to also provide an OTP sent to his mobile number, where the authentic mobile number would be provided by the user at the time of setup.

There is a similar two step verification also used by Google to protect its Gmail accounts. PrestaShop do not provide this extra security feature with the core installation. However, you can use one of the various PrestaShop modules which add this feature to your store.

3.

Never use the Admin email address and passwords anywhere

else Hackers may not attack your web-store directly, but they have multiple ways to indirectly get into your mind and guess your credentials. Users often use a single email address and password on different accounts for the simplicity of remembering.

If you are using the same email address and password on your different user accounts on the internet, you must stop this practice right now. At least for the email address and password that you are using for your web-store admin panel, you must not use it any where else. Lesser the people know your user-name more secure is your store.

4. Upgrade to at least latest PrestaShop minor version It’s understandable that you might not want to immediately switch to the latest version of the PrestaShop. For example, there is still a debate going on, if you should switch to PrestaShop 1.7 or not.

Understanding the situation, I can suggest you to at least upgrade your PrestaShop version to the latest minor version. If, there is PrestaShop 1.7, there is also PrestaShop 1.6 series. So, if you do not want to switch from 1.6 to 1.7, at least make sure you are using the latest version of 1.6 series. It will ensure that you are running your store with the latest security updates and patches from the PrestaShop. Upgrading PrestaShop helps you to get new features, security patches, bug fixes, and other crucial updates.

5. Switch to HTTPS (Encrypted connections) Communications made via unencrypted connections are highly exposed to the hackers and third party intruders. Hackers can easily break into these unsafe channels and extract the sensitive data being communicated on and through your website.

To keep your store safe, you must immediately switch to the HTTPS connection by implementing an SSL certificate. A properly implemented SSL certificate can protect your sensitive information such as login credentials, customers data, credit card data and other details. As soon as you purchase an SSL certificate from the verified authority, migrate all your URLs and enable the HTTPS by configuring your PrestaShop store.

You will also need an SEO practitioner by your side during this migration as it involves a lot of crucial 301 redirects on which an SEO expert can guide you better.

6. Setup an automatic backup 

Making regular backups of your PrestaShop store and database help a lot when unavoidable things happen to your web-store. In case of any irreversible error on your website, you can always revert back to the working condition by simply restoring a backup.

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You can manually backup your PrestaShop store by regularly downloading and keeping the site files and database with you. However, it is a tedious task and you will eventually get fed up doing the same thing again and again.

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You may want to take the help of a PrestaShop back up modules to automate the whole thing. While backing up your website and database,

you can remember the following points: 

Automate the backup process to take regular backups without any manual intervention.

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Take the database backup as well as whole site backup.

Keep the backed up files on different locations in addition to the server.

You can use the cloud drives to store the backed up files, Google Drive and Drop box are good choices for the same.

Easy DB backup is an useful module that can take PrestaShop database backups automatically and save those backups on multiple locations like Google drive, Drop Box, and off course on you server itself.

7. Limit the admin access to your IP address It’s really a great way to safeguard your admin panel and FTP access. You ask your server admin to limit the access to the admin panel and files only to a particular IP address. By doing so you can ensure that no one outside your IP address can access your admin panel and site files. The attackers who would try to reach your admin panel and FTP from another IP would not be able to access it.

Although there are ways to break through this security layer, it will at least give a real hard time to the hackers as it is not that easy as it seems.

8. Test and inspect the changes thoroughly PrestaShop is equipped with various customization and configuration options with lots of modules and themes. If you are trying to leverage any PrestaShop provided customization, make sure you know it before implementing. Before enabling or disabling any crucial setting you must confirm it from an expert if you don’t know much about it.

Moreover, if you are doing any custom modification on your PrestaShop store, ensure that you have done enough testing and verification for security related issues in the sandbox mode before actually implementing it. Your development replica store would be a great place to test the customization before implementing on the actual live store.

9. Use the PrestaShop modules from the trusted sources Default PrestaShop is a very secure platform which cannot be hacked so easily.

Hackers, however, choose a different and easy way to break into your store.

They may find a loop hole in the third-party modules and theme that you are using. Not every PrestaShop module is safe to install as they might not comply with the security measures and standard PrestaShop coding.

That’s why you must use the PrestaShop modules developed by reputed developers only. Ensure before hand that your PrestaShop Module is not harmful to use. You can use these tips:   

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Buy PrestaShop modules from reputed developers only Research about the module for reviews on multiple sites and forums Try to use modules from the developers who also sell on official PrestaShop marketplace.

Modules and developerBuy PrestaShop modules from reputed developers only

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Research about the module for reviews on multiple sites and forums

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Try to use modules from the developers who also sell on official PrestaShop marketplace.

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Modules and developers on official PrestaShop marketplace are generally safe

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s on official PrestaShop marketplace are generally safe

Finally These are some best security measures that you should take immediately as a PrestaShop store owner to protect your site.. There are various advanced ways to keep your store safe, however, the fundamentals are always important. Any advanced method will not work best if these fundamental steps are not taken already.