8 E-Commerce Security Mistakes for Opencart, Magento, and Prestashop You Need to Avoid
Updated on: October 26, 2023
Grace Carter
5 mins read
Running an online commerce store is never easy. You’ve got to think of every aspect of the business from stock management and marketing to customer service and sales. However, no matter what kind of jobs you’re working on, one of the most important things you need to think about is security.
Some of the biggest platforms in the industry are Opencart, Magento, and Prestashop, and when it comes to security, there are several things you need to think about. Today, we’re going to explore seven of the most common mistakes people make and how you can avoid them.
1 – Not Using Professional/Personal Devices Separately
It might be easy to have your computer and your phone and run everything through them, but it’s important you have separate devices for yourself and your business. Let’s say you have access to all your customer’s financial information and accounts on your device, and it gets stolen.
“This is a huge security breach which could render everybody’s privacy public and has the potential to cause a serious amount of damage. This could happen through theft, from hackers, or via the installation of malware and viruses and it needs to be avoided at all costs,” explains Andy Taylor, a tech writer at Big Assignments and Ox Essays.
2 – Not Protecting Yourself from Attacks
You never know what kind of attacks could come to your website that could bring it down and create security risks at the same time. From phishing attacks that are designed to spoof your website pages to steal personal information and financial data, to DDoS attacks that can completely halt access to your website completely.
Any of these attacks can leave your website vulnerable and can create breaches in your security, but they can be avoided using counter-security software and protection software.
3 – Not Following Security Guidelines
When you use an online payment system, there are guidelines that you need to follow, and by not following these, you’re not only opening up yourself to potential security risks, but also could cause many problems for your business, such as the event of being disconnected.
For example, you’re going to need a PCI-compliant website, and you need to use a protected shopping cart, which is provided by these payment platforms as long as you’ve enabled the setting. You need to give your customers the assurance that they’re dealing with a legitimate business.
No matter what platform you decide to use, make sure you’re reading up on the current guidelines of what payment platforms need to provide and what you, as a business, should be looking into and providing as the standard best practice.
4 – Incrementing Gift Card IDs
This may sound like a small security breach, but it’s a security breach nonetheless. If you have sold a gift card to a customer with the code 123456, you don’t want to have cards available with the code 123457. These are too easy to guess, and while it may sound simple, there are plenty of case studies where this has happened.
All the platforms we’re talking about this article allow the production and distribution of gift cards, and you’re able to create custom codes, so simply avoid making it easy for someone else to steal someone else’s money as this is only can to push people away from your business.
5 – Editing Core Files
With any of the e-commerce platforms we’re talking about, there are core files that will be used to run the system. These have been designed to be secure and protected from attacks, but by editing these files means you could be opening them up to potential vulnerabilities.
Although the code can be edited and added too depending on what you want the platform to do, however, you’ll want to be aware that this isn’t creating errors and ultimately security risks.
6 – Not Using a Secure Connection
This is a common practice and easy mistake to make when you’re running your website without a secure server connection. From a basic perspective, this is using an HTTPS connection, rather than an unsafe HTTP.
“Setting this up with your preferred payment platform will depend on what you’re using, but whatever type of security you’re using, you’ll need to make sure your platform is working well with the connection, and everything is secure,” shares Mark Harris, an e-commerce expert for Paper Fellows and Academized.
7 – Not Keeping Your E-Commerce Platform Updated
Whether you’re using Opencart, Prestashop or Magento, these platforms will release updates to improve functionality and security and while these timely updates may seem irritating and you might not want to update because of the work involved in making sure everything is compatible.
8 – Importance of Firewall and Security Audit
A Firewall is a layer of security solution that checks the traffic coming to your server and protects it from malware and hackers. It’s like a gatekeeper that filters through the traffic that you get on your server. There are large amounts of data on your server – data about customers, plans, development and so on and you need to protect it because a breach could have terrible consequences on your business.
Security audit, on the other hand is important because it helps you determine where your weak spots are, what you need to fix and what could use some improvement. A routine security pentesting can protect your user’s sensitive data and includes scanning of your plugins to reveal any backdoors.
However, it’s vital that you keep everything updated to the latest version in order to maximize success, functionality, and security.
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Grace Carter
