There are very few people who understand the importance of Magento security patch. There are few store owners who are not developers or don’t have an E-commerce digital agency have to perform regular updates or install security patches but still many are lacking in maintaining the security.

U might think, if everything is running smoothly, a store is currently taking orders, new customers are signing up, a system is speedy and you are making the profit and nothing is broken then why fix it? In that case, you have to rethink.

Magento security is the main concern and you have to keep in mind about the cost as well. The main purpose of the E-commerce store is to generate more and more sales and make money. Along with this you also have to protect your valuable customers’ privacy, increase your brand awareness and build a good market reputation.

When you are updating to a new version of Magento then your regular critical updates also change. A critical update is so important that you can’t wait to fix it until the next release of Magento and this happens because of few listed below things:

• Security flaws in checkout and credit card capture
• Security vulnerabilities that allow a malicious piece of code to be ran remotely
• Vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized people into the Magento admin
• Updates to third-party APIs that could make Magento core functions no longer work
• Vulnerabilities that put customers’ information at risk

If you have not installed a critical security update on your Magento store since a long time then you should do it in an immediate basis.

Security updates protects your customers’ private information and also increase your brand reputation. The repercussions of a malevolent person who is trying to gain access to your site for grabbing customer addresses, phone numbers, credit cards and other information might harm your reputation and decrease your sales in the short- and long-term.

How to find out that you Site Has Been Compromised?

If you face a situation where your site is not working properly or acting strange then you are having security issues in your Magento store.

We have shared some of the common signs to determine whether your site has been compromised or not

• Check your list of administrator users for unknown accounts. We have seen vpwq and defaultmanager being used, but any unknown account is suspicious
• Check your Magento installation for any unknown files that were recently created and are suspicious. Compare all files to your code repository or staging server.
• Check server access log files for request POST /index.php/admin/Cms_Wysiwyg/directive/index/ coming from unknown IP addresses.
• Run a tool to check for trojans (e.g. chkrootkit)
• Check for wrong permissions
• Check for hidden files
• Check for suspicious ports being opened (command: netstat -nap | grep LISTEN )
• Check for any port redirections on OS level (sample command: iptables -L -n)

If you’re experiencing any of these above-mentioned issues, then do get in touch with the Magento experts as your customers’ private information, Magento functionality, and store’s reputation could be on the line.

Magento security patch is a major concern so fix even a small issue as soon as possible. Do share your views and experiences in the comment section below