Hacked Magento Stores: Symptoms, Causes, and Preventions

For every online business, security should be the top priority. Having more than a decade of experience providing Magento Store Management Services, we know the consequences of compromised store security and its after-effects.

If the security of your online business is compromised, you will not just lose sales or customers but also their trust forever. Even though Magento is a highly secured eCommerce development platform, you need to take some actions regularly to keep your store safe from hackers and know when your store’s security is partially or fully compromised.

In this article, we will talk about everything about the security of your Magento store and what you can do to protect it from malicious attacks. So, let’s get started.

How to Identify that Your Magento Store is Hacked?

If the security of your Magento store is compromised, you must know about it immediately to prevent loss and recover your store. If you look for its symptoms carefully, you will know about the situation earlier and the chances of data loss will be less.

Here are some of the symptoms of a hacked Magento store:

• Complaints about stolen customer card details
• Magento store not being crawled
• Your website experiences malicious redirects
• Slow Magento website speed and frequent bugs
• Additional fields on the checkout form and lost money on checkout
• You are not able to log in to the admin panel or access some of its functions
• Your hosting provider suspends your store
• Changes in Magento files and folders

In addition to these symptoms, you will also face some consequences as a result of your hacked store. For example, you will see a sudden decline in traffic, adverse SEO effects, and users not trusting your website. The hacker may even sell your data to your competitors or use it for malicious purposes.

Also Read: Magento Store Management: 5 Issues That Can Lead to Business Loss & How to Fix Them

What are the Causes of Magento Store Hack?

A small security breach can ruin your business reputation for many years to come. Thus, it is essential to know what can cause a security breach or what could be the causes behind your Magento store getting hacked.

1. SQL Injection

This is a very common attack on web applications, and it targets the database of an online store. The purpose behind this attack can vary, but SQL injection can ruin your business reputation.

The database is a crucial element of an eCommerce website as all customer data, order, and transaction history is saved there. And data is the goldmine for eCommerce businesses. This fact makes your database an attractive target for hackers.

Here are some of the after-effects of SQL injection:

• The hacker can access your database.
• He can edit or modify its content.
• He can also copy or delete the entire database to sell the same to your competitors.
• He can steal the payment details of your customers.
• He can access admin credentials, which can result in other attacks.

How can you prevent SQL injection?

• Use tools and software: You can use online tools and software to monitor the security of your system so that even if your team misses a vulnerability, this tool can detect the same.
• Adopt top-notch coding practices: By following good coding practices, you can easily detect user input & interfaces that expose many surfaces to attack. This way, you can reduce the area where a hacker can inject code.
• Awareness of vulnerabilities: Regardless of how carefully you write your code, new vulnerabilities can emerge at any point. So, make sure you audit your codebase frequently to avoid any attack.

2. XSS Attack

The process of injecting malicious JavaScript code into the web pages of a store is called an XSS attack. It is the result of weak Validation and Sanitization rules. The XSS attack aims to steal session details of admin, users, or both. After a successful XSS attack, the hackers get access to the user’s login credentials and can log in to your store unauthentically.

Here are some of the after-effects of the XSS attack:

• Stealing session details and cookies
• Access to crucial data like CSRF tokens
• The hacker can make requests/orders as your user
• Users getting redirected to malicious domains

How can you prevent XSS attacks?

• Sanitize data inputs: Make sure that the data is filtered and validated at the server and client end before reflecting on the user. Also, filter out special characters like /, ?, &, and others to convert them into their HTML values.
• Implement security headers: You can also consider implementing X-XSS-protection header as it will not let pages load when they detect any suspicious attack.

3. Cross-Site Request Forgery

A CSRF attack is all about sending fake requests on behalf of a user. A hacker may send fake links to the users (generally admin) via email and ask them to complete the desired action. The only goal behind this attack is to execute several tasks on users’ behalf. Here are the effects of a CSRF attack:

• Your credit card information may get leaked
• The hacker can delete your account
• The attacker can even initiate and complete the fund transfer request
• He can ever order from your Magento store by altering the prices of the produc

How can you prevent CSRF attacks?

• Use token-based prevention
• Always have synchronizer tokens
• Leverage Captcha

The Ultimate Way to Prevent a Magento Store Hack: Hire Magento Store Management Services at Envision eCommerce

You must take necessary actions from time to time to secure your web store and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Also, regular security audits and enhancements are necessary for running a secure eCommerce store. But, you can not do it yourself, and it is always a good idea to leave it to the experts.

We at Envision eCommerce provide reliable Magento Support Services to help our clients avoid any security issue even before it arises. Having years of experience working with Magento stores, our Magento-certified developers and security experts know what it takes to keep hackers away from your store. So, you can rely on us, and we will get you covered. 

Here are some of the practices we use to ensure store security for our clients:

• Scanning for Malware

We have tools in place that we use to scan your store for any Malware. Along with the store, we also scan integrations and extensions from time to time to make sure your store is safe. 

• Security Patch Installation

The Magento team keeps releasing security patches from time to time to solve security issues in the existing Magento version. We make sure your store always stays updated with these latest security patches not to encounter any security issues.

• Magento Code and Security Audit

Our developers will Audit Your Magento Store code and security to find any loopholes that you might have ignored during the initial development phase.

• Store Performance Enhancement

Whether you need to add new code to your store or update your server environment, our team will help you keep your store protected and stay ahead of the curve.

Magento is a robust eCommerce solution with many advanced features and functionalities. But, it is also open-source and vulnerable to security issues. Thus, you need to ensure that you have proper security measures in place to ensure store safety and your customers’ security.

For any help, you can contact Envision eCommerce experts to ensure your store operates at its best in terms of security, functionality, and performance. Contact Now!