Magento 2 experts provide 5 reasons you need to audit your Magento store for security ASAP
Published: 2019-08-15 10:14:12

Cybersecurity is a big deal.

Hackers have advanced technologies at their disposal and the frequency of cyber-attacks is growing. According to Accenture, the average cost of a malware attack on a company is $2.4 million - sounds convincing enough to invest in enhanced site security.

The e-commerce industry should pay double attention to the preventative measures against cyber-attacks as it deals with personal customer data and payment information. So the best option is to conduct the security audit to make sure your e-commerce store is as safe as a house.

**The most common attack forms**

Before listing down the reasons why a website may call for an audit, let’s have a look at the most common forms of attacks.

1. Malware infection: includes worms, viruses, Trojan horses, spyware. The malware is extremely dangerous as it may delete all the data, steal it, or infect the users.
2. DDoS: a Distributed Denial of Service attack directs an overwhelming amount of automated traffic to your site and brings it down, resulting in a big loss of visitors.
3. Injection: a form of attack when a hacker tricks your system and makes it do something wrong, like giving away the customers’ information.
4. Brute force: with the use of a special application, hackers find the passwords to access your system and do whatever they want with your system.
5. XSS: the cross-site scripting allows hackers to steal users from the site, which leads to massive sales loss.

These are not all forms of cyber-attacks that hackers use. With technology advancement, attacks get more sophisticated and are harder to track and prevent. Regular security audits help timely identify and fix any security flaw that your site may have.

**Reasons why your store needs an audit right now**

An average e-commerce store handles an overwhelming number of transactions on the daily basis – and all of them involve customer’s sensitive data and payment information.
 
Below you will see the key reasons why store owners need to consider a security audit if they want to keep the store safe and their customers protected:

Eliminate vulnerabilities in the third-party code
Magento is loved by the e-commerce entrepreneurs for its vast customization options. The integration of third-party services expands the functionality significantly but may come at a high price if the third-party code is vulnerable and has breaches.

Thus, the audit of the third-party extensions and plugins is a must if you want to 100% secure your store.  

Prevent any suspicious activity
Even the smallest thing can lead to big troubles. It is essential to closely inspect both Magento and server logs to identify any suspicious activity and detect its source.

Ensure PCI DSS compliance
Numerous studies carried out by Magento 2 experts show that shoppers trust some payment services more than others. This serves as a reason almost all e-commerce stores place payment and security pages on the site to provoke a sense of trust and reliability among the customers.

But in order to accept and process payments, your store has to comply with the PCI DSS, which stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. The security audit double-checks whether your store complies with the regulatory requirements and if your payment gateways are safe for data processing and storing.

Ensure the quality of the store performance on mobile devices
Considering the rising popularity of mobile within the e-commerce industry, store owners have to pay double attention to mobile security.

There are Mobile PCI standards to comply with and there are many aspects of mobile security to keep in mind. A security audit will help you check if your mobile store is equally secured as the desktop one.

Moderate the role-based risks
Magento allows advanced role distribution for the users. However, the roles and responsibilities have to be monitored to prevent unwanted user management and data leak.

By conducting the audit, you will be able to assess the role-based risks and develop a strategy to mitigate them.

**Conclusion**

The e-commerce store security is a critical issue that requires site owners to be proactive rather than reactive in order to keep the business up and running.

Even if you think your store is 100% secure, it won’t harm to conduct a security audit by [Magento 2 experts] (https://onilab.com/blog/magento-migration-experts-interviewed/). At least, you will get useful recommendations for the future, and at most you will get a hacker-proof website that will store the data securely.