This article enumerates essential tips to boost the security of the Magento admin panel.
The eCommerce business has seen unprecedented growth in the last decade, and it will keep growing as more people have access to smartphones. Individuals and companies are entering this space to make the most of this opportunity. However, cyber risks are growing every day, and securing an eCommerce website has become a challenge. Cyber criminals are one step ahead when it comes to learning new technologies and using them for their benefit.
Since Magento is a leading eCommerce platform hackers and attackers target it to steal information. Despite taking various security measures, Magento websites are still not immune to cyber risks. Attackers try to access them to disrupt the functioning of the website or access customers’ credit card details, or passwords. Magento users need to learn how to protect their eCommerce websites against malicious intent. T
Top 7 Tips to Secure the Magento Admin Panel
Here are the 7 tips to secure the Magento Admin Panel:
Install an SSL Certificate on Your eCommerce Store website
Security is the first thing that comes to customers’ minds when they want to shop online. With too many incidents of cyber-attacks, people think multiple times before they provide their bank account or credit card details on any shopping site. How to secure your eCommerce store and win customers’ trust?
A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate protects a customer’s details by encrypting them. It provides a secure connection for the transmission of data between the user’s browser and website server, thus preventing any third party from accessing it. Moreover, using an SSL certificate also boosts the Google ranking of a website.
When you install a low-priced SSL certificate like cheap SSL wildcard or multi-domain SSL certificate on your website, it will show HTTPS and a padlock on the URL, which makes your website safe and reliable for customers.
Implement the best password practices
A password is a key to your website, and you need to make it secure to prevent some unauthorized person from accessing your website. If a criminal gets to know the password, he can steal your users’ data, or lock you out of the website. You never know what they can do to your website. Keeping a strong password can help you avoid such situations.
An ideal password for your website should be of a minimum of 12 characters, and it must be a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. However, you need to ensure you can remember it. Cyber experts recommend using password managers if you can’t remember them. You should also avoid storing the password on the computer you use to access your Magento website. Some viruses can easily find out a stored password in the system. The last thing about your password is to keep changing it regularly to ensure infiltrators don’t get much time to guess the password.
Scan your eCommerce Store Using Magento Scan Tool
Magento developers understand the security risks, and they developed the free scanning Magento tool to determine if there is a security threat to the admin panel. The tool has many security features that make it easy to perform a security scan. During the scan, it alerts you about any suspicious activities or security threats to your website. Other features of this tool are saving the scanning sessions in the Magento merchant accounts, real-time alerts about any security issues, and scheduling security scans.
Also read: Cybersecurity During Work from home | A Security Checklist
Use the Latest Version of Magento
Magento is open-source software, and anybody can contribute to its development. Hackers try to find out ways to target business owners using it. To mitigate the threat, Magento developers worked out a solution. They constantly monitor the software. When they come across any security threat, they roll out the latest version of the software that includes security patches to deal with the threats. So, upgrading to the latest version of the software is another effective way to secure your Magento admin panel.
Use a Unique URL for the Admin Panel
The admin panel is the most critical part of your website, and you must secure it to safeguard your website from attacks. Hackers can easily access the regular admin panel for the website, which is mysite.com/admin. Setting up a custom path for the admin dashboard is the best way to protect your Magento admin panel. Doing so will make it difficult for the attackers to find it. Do you know how to create a custom path to your website’s admin URL? Here are the steps:
- Go to configuration >> advanced >> admin >> work
- Look for the ‘Use Custom Admin path’ command and click YES
- Type in a more complex admin pathname and save it
- Log out and log in again to make the changes effective
Use a Firewall for an Additional Layer of Security
When it comes to your eCommerce store security, it is wise not to take chances and use an extra layer of security. Using a web application firewall (WAF) will safeguard your Magento website. A firewall can monitor, analyze, and filter the web traffic to ensure people with malicious intentions can’t access your website server.
Besides that, online stores may face MySQL injection attacks. The criminals can access and tamper with the database of your website and use them to fulfill their malicious intent. Using a firewall can protect your website from SQL injection attacks and a сross-site scripting attack.
Backup Your Magento Website Regularly
You may take the best measures to ensure the security of your website, yet it may face an attack. The reason can be a failure of a security tool, or it can be because of any human error. Suppose an employee uses a weak password or saves it somewhere, and some attackers find it! It’s better to be ready for the worst scenario and back up the critical data of your website regularly.
It will prevent data loss and misuse of crucial data in case of a cyber attack. While backing up the website data, use the built-in backup functionalities to ensure you don’t miss out on any data. Once you back up, make sure you do not store the copies in any device to avoid any chances of miscreants getting access to the data. For an additional layer of security, you can upload them to a remote server. It is a great way to ensure you have a working version of the website.
Conclusion
Magento is an excellent platform for building eCommerce websites with all the necessary features. The developers are constantly working on adding more features. Besides, they release timely updates with security patches to secure your Magento website. However, as a business owner, you should take additional security measures to prevent data theft and risks. A cyber attack not only poses a threat to your and consumers’ sensitive data but also damages your reputation. Install a Comodo SSL certificate to encrypt customers’ data on your Magento website and follow the above tips to secure the admin panel.
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