How to Boost Security of Your Ecommerce Site with Magento Security Patches?

February 20, 2018
1 Comment

Table of Contents

Magento is the most popular platform within the e-commerce industry because of its frequent updates and new features. A survey has stated that out of 56,000 e-stores about 26% ecommerce businesses use Magento. This clearly shows that whenever anyone has plans to start an e-store, they first consider this popular platform.

Despite being one of the most robust platforms, it presents some security related issues to the users. And this is why Magento releases new security patches. In this article, we will discuss with you the importance of these patches.

Whenever you plan to create an e-store using Magento development services, website security is the first thing that comes to your mind. Magento security patches are packages of modified core files that aim to fix specific security issues that are discovered in the platform.

The latest versions include the security fixes that are existing at the date of release and so you don’t have to install any patches. But, if you are not using the latest version, then you are at a higher risk of Magento security vulnerabilities. Though new loopholes appear all the time, the patches are released to help maintain your online store security.

What is a Magento security patch?

If there are any security breaches and a fix for that is developed, the code that offers the update should be provided so that it can be applied to the existing sites developed in the platform Most of the time, the fixes comes in the form of very small changes in the codes that are referred to as patches.

These are supplied in the form of self-installing scripts containing all the updates needed to fix the security issues. The patch locates the existing code and then applies the updates to the files and then saves the results. Whenever a patch is released, Magento also releases the latest version of the application that contains the latest patch and all the previous patches.

How to install security patches?

In order to apply the patch, you will have to access the server’s command line. Doing this at times may break your Magento website, so it is best to take the help of a Magento development company who are experienced and knowledgeable.

The best practices involve applying a patch is to run it on a non-production version of your site and then check if the updates are properly applied before moving the code to the production server. It is highly recommended to have a backup of all your database and files before applying the patch.

There may be times when a patch might fail if it did not find where the update is. This can cause missing previous patches and the strategy for the patch is that it relies on the previous patches that are being installed.

An expert Magento developer can find this by taking a look at the app/etc/applied.patches.list file that contains the list of all the patches that were installed. To check your site about the security patches, you can use the Mage Report. This will help you to test your site and list down any patches that can be further added.

What else can be done to protect a Magento site?

Besides installing the security patches, you can conduct a security audit every quarter to ensure that your store is secured especially if you have installed new extensions and made some changes to the site. You can also change your password once a quarter and also after any completion of work with anyone with whom you have shared the access details of your store.

“Security patches are an essential aspect in order to run a high performance and error free e-commerce store. For best solutions, you can get in touch with a reputed Magento ecommerce web development company to keep your site updated.”