PrestaShop Security: Essential Tips and Best Practices

Online retail is one of the fastest-growing industries in recent years. That trend was further boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic when we were forced to remain at home most of the time. But even after that, people got so used to online shopping that we never looked back. Just for the period between 2019-2023, the number of ecommerce stores skyrocketed from around 9.2 million to 26.5 million – a whopping 200%+ growth.

In short, starting an online shop today gives you a great foundation for a successful business. 

But all your efforts will go in vain if you don’t consider the looming threats. 

Our job today is to learn more about cyber security in ecommerce and, more specifically – in PrestaShop. What can we expect from our online journey, what should we be aware of, and how do we best tackle the common dangers as PrestaShop store owners?

Importance of Store Security

As technologies evolve and we spend more time online, cybersecurity is becoming more important than ever. This is especially true for online shops, where millions of money transactions are made each day. When you look at the numbers, the situation seems very bleak:

– About 38% of online scams worldwide involve ecommerce stores.

– Global ecommerce payment fraud losses have reached a staggering $40 billion in 2022.

– Retail is the most targeted industry by hackers (29%), followed by the financial sector (18%).

– North American businesses are the most often compromised, closely followed by the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

If you intend to start a PrestaShop project (or any ecommerce venture, for that matter), such statistics may make you rethink your ideas. But worry not because the more clever hackers are getting, the more inventive cybersecurity experts are getting in the quest of stopping criminals in their tracks. 

Web Hosting Security Guidelines

Let’s start with the obvious.

Every PrestaShop ecommerce site needs web hosting, so you need to ensure you pick a company that takes great care of your cybersecurity.

Starting with the data center, reliable hosts ensure they partner with vendors that keep your server in facilities that undertake top-tier security measures. They strongly resemble government buildings—restricted access that utilizes biometric data, complete isolation, and careful cooling mechanisms are just some of the precautions you can expect to protect your hardware. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s actually quite easy to start a web hosting company, but making it a secure option for ecommerce businesses takes a lot of effort and careful planning. Any reliable host should not only have a failsafe strategy on how to protect their own premises but also their clients’. This often includes:

• Malware detection and removal
• DDoS attack protection
• Network monitoring
• Offsite data backups
• Safest operating system (OS) and software solutions

As for the PrestaShop store owners, before they can think of applying any security measures to their website, they have to determine the best environment for their project. Most often, the choice boils down to:

• Shared Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting

On many occasions, virtual private servers (VPS) prove to be the best choice for startups and SMBs. That’s because they take the best out of all options – the affordability of shared services combined with the performance and security of dedicated solutions. Naturally, once your project starts growing too much, you can consider a more complex or hybrid hosting plan, but unless you are already getting millions of daily visitors – VPS is the way to go. 

PrestaShop Store Security: Best Practices

Ok, you are now aware of the looming online dangers and have a great partner to help you keep a safe shop…what else can you do?

Quite a lot, actually. Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and even the best hosting provider cannot fully protect you if you leave your PrestaShop doors wide open. 

Let’s now discuss some of the most common precautions you can take even without being a technological expert. 

PrestaShop Updates and Patches

Every popular software application relies on constant updates to remain competitive and up-to-date with the latest trends.

PrestaShop is no different, and there is a very good reason for that.

Software updates and patches are the only way to make changes to the PrestaShop core. This not only includes new and refined functionalities that improve its performance but also introduces security practices that harden your app. Even if your website works great and seems well-protected from the get-go, technologies quickly get older, which subsequently makes them slower and less secure. A new patch might not necessarily fix a current problem, but it always ensures your environment is in tune with the latest standards. 

Regularly updating the application core is just part of the solution, though. Any PrestaShop theme and module that you are actively using should also be up to its latest versions. On the other hand, if you have add-ons that you no longer need – it’s best to delete them altogether to avoid hackers utilizing any backdoors and breaching your account.  

Secure P​a​s​s​w​o​r​d Management

As obvious as it may seem, insecure passwords are among the top reasons for website breaches. It’s 2024 already, but many site owners still bet on an easy word or number to protect one of their most sacred possessions. If you look at the statistics, passkeys like P​a​s​s​w​o​r​d, 123456, Monkey, and 123123 still top the charts.

It’s mind-boggling, really. 

Think of it like buying a new house with all the luxuries and then leaving the keys at the door when you go to work. It’s like you are inviting robbers to come in and take whatever they want.

We understand why choosing a p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d with personal significance might seem like a good idea in terms of memorability. But have you ever considered how many websites and apps nowadays ask for various personal information, and we just fill it in to continue using them? A great example of social engineering is the seemingly funny pages that ask for your names, date of birth, or photo to show you “What’s your elf name?” or “Find out how you’ll look 50 years from now?”

Forget about memorability and focus on complexity. 

A string of letters (capital and lowercase), numbers, and special symbols (%,&,#,$) is the only way to guarantee that a brute-force p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d attack is next to impossible. The longer the combination, the better.

If you are worried that you might accidentally forget or lose your login credentials – there are many secure p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d management tools on the market that will happily take that burden off your shoulders.

Admin URL Security

By default, when you install PrestaShop on your domain, you can access the admin section through the following URL:

www.yourdomain.com/admin

While this is convenient for site owners, hackers are also aware of that fact. Knowing your admin URL allows them to quickly find an entry point to your ecommerce shop, and the rest is left to their creativity. Remember the brute-force attacks we mentioned earlier? Imagine not only having to guess your p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d but also having to figure out where to input it. 

Luckily, changing the admin URL path in PrestaShop is as simple as it comes. Simply go to the folder where you installed the app, find the Admin subfolder, and just rename it to whatever you want. Naturally, keep the new path as private as possible and only share it with trusted contributors. 

SSL/TLS Encryption

Whenever you land on a website, you establish a connection between your browser and the server hosting the site. Various protocols like HTTP and TCP/IP are involved, so both ends understand what is needed from them. However, leaving this data exchange unprotected can often lead to dangers, which is why a more secure protocol (HTTPS) is required.

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, which represents an encrypted way to pass data between computer systems. This is a must-have for any PrestaShop ecommerce website because, without HTTPS, you are leaving tons of personal and billing data out in the open. SSL certificates encrypt this information in a way so complicated that even if a hacker manages to tap into your connection, it will be practically unreadable.

You may have noticed that many websites nowadays display a padlock icon before the URL, notifying the visitor that an SSL protects the page they landed on. This inspires trust and gives the user peace of mind that they shouldn’t worry about their data being vulnerable. On the contrary, without the SSL, many browsers will show a warning, which frightens the visitors and often makes them leave immediately.

That’s not the only benefit of the security certificates, though.

In recent years, Google has added the HTTPS connection to its algorithm factors, meaning that websites without it would have a much harder time ranking well in its search engine. So, if you are looking to maximize your SEO efforts, securing your PrestaShop website with an SSL is a no-brainer. 

This wouldn’t break your bank, either. 

Many hosting providers (ScalaHosting included) partner with the Let’s Encrypt project, allowing them to offer SSL certificates to any customer completely free of charge. Installing one is also a piece of cake, with the host actively helping with the configuration. There is literally no reason why you should skip this feature.

Payment Security

Offering multiple payment methods is a great way to attract more clients as a PrestaShop store owner, especially if you are selling goods internationally. Many vendors support more than a few methods to process payments, such as credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Stripe, and bank transfers. 

Securing those transactions is crucial, though. 

Make sure you follow the PCI DSS guidelines. This is the global security standard for anyone who processes, stores, or transmits cardholder and authentication data. Whenever your client pays online for any of your products/services, the information passes through multiple stages.

You are responsible for choosing a gateway that will ensure maximum security at any of those stages and avoid fraudulent transactions. Solutions like Stripe, PayPal, Square, Braintree, and Skrill have a proven track record in that aspect. You can also check the recommended solutions based on your particular geolocation and audience preferences.

Data Protection and Privacy

SSL certificates and PCI DSS standards are not the only regulations that will help your PrestaShop site and clients stay protected. 

Back in 2018, the European Union established GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – a new legislation governing the transfer of personal data. GDPR bases its purpose upon seven major principles:

• Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency
• Purpose limitation
• Data minimization
• Accuracy
• Storage limitation
• Integrity and confidentiality
• Accountability

In layman’s terms, customers from the EU and UK now have much more control over how websites collect, store, and use their personal information. It doesn’t matter if your PrestaShop site is registered outside the EU – if your client is from a European country, they should clearly see what information will be collected and consent to its usage. 

Luckily, Presta offers a few modules on GDPR compliance, which will save you a lot of headaches when trying to understand the legislation in detail. 

Secure File Permissions

Any website consists of many files that reside in various directories. As a site owner, you want to determine who can access, read, or modify this information. This is exactly what file permissions are all about. 

File permissions are represented by three-digit numbers:

• The first digit represents the Owner’s permissions
• The second digit represents the Group permissions (for your internal group)
• The third digit represents permissions for Other (outside users)

Furthermore, each digit should be between 0 and 7:

• 0 – no access
• 1 – execute only
• 2 – write only
• 3 – write+execute
• 4 – read only
• 5 – read+execute
• 6 – read+write
• 7 – read+write+execute

One of the most common file permissions is 755. This means you, as a site admin, have full access to do whatever you wish with your files, while contributors and outside users can only read and execute them without the ability to make any changes. On the contrary, leaving permissions as 777 allows anyone to view and edit your files/directories, which is a serious security risk.

If you are unsure of the proper settings for each of your essential files – it’s best to consult a professional to avoid leaving vital information unprotected.

Firewall and Malware Protection

In a perfect world, all incoming traffic to your server will be from legitimate sources, like your ecommerce shop visitors. Sadly, that is rarely the case. Hackers often employ fake traffic to execute things like DDoS attacks to disrupt server operations and bring down entire networks.

A properly set firewall makes their job much harder. 

A network firewall monitors all incoming traffic and only lets legitimate requests pass through. It’s like a barrier that operates based on a set of predetermined rules. Should it detect something suspicious – the barrier goes down and shields your premises from potentially harmful traffic.

PrestaShop users can activate an additional defense called a Web Application Firewall (WAF). It practically works the same as a network firewall, but the protection is applied to traffic that comes explicitly to your website or app. Several modules and security suites add WAF functionality to your Presta store, and you can easily find them in the Module Manager section of your admin panel. 

Backup and Disaster Recovery

There is solid truth in the saying “hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”

You cannot underestimate the power of backups. Even some of the biggest enterprises that utilize their own data centers have suffered major breaches and web attacks. Sometimes, it’s not a matter if you can prevent such incidents – it’s how you recover from them. 

The obvious answer is data backups. 

Even people who invest millions in their security setup don’t dare believe that their online premises are 100% failsafe. They’re worried about more than hackers – a simple human error can bring their services down, so redundancy is one of their primary focuses. 

As a PrestaShop store owner, you should be well aware that every second of downtime equals lost sales. So, you have to ensure there is always a working copy of your website ready to be restored in case of emergency. What’s more, you have to ensure that the backup is kept on an entirely different server from where your main website resides. A good piece of advice is to actually have several copies, which is why responsible site owners rely on daily backups, sometimes even hourly ones. 

One thing to keep an eye on is that those data archives also take up a good chunk of your hosting space. To avoid cramming your account with dozens of backups, simply make a schedule to delete the ones that are already too old. Also, make sure to test your restore procedures so that even if something goes wrong – you know that going back online will take as little time as possible. 

Security Audits and Monitoring

Successful PrestaShop store owners know that cybersecurity is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of job. Only through constant monitoring can you be sure no unexpected vulnerabilities are popping up. After all, your ecommerce website doesn’t stop evolving. You make design changes, add new functionalities, activate new modules, put new SEO procedures in place…any of those can create new dangers for your environment.

Regular security audits, monitoring, and maintenance are the best way to ensure your online project is always up to the highest standards. Naturally, these procedures should not interfere with your site operations and uptime. This is why it’s best to have a copy of your live website in a staging environment and test any upcoming changes there first. Even seemingly vital processes like core and add-on updates can create various compatibility issues, so it’s best to ensure everything is working fine before tinkering with your live website. 

Employee Training and Awareness

Human error is one of the most common reasons for site hacks and breaches. Be it clicking on a link from a seemingly legitimate email, sharing a p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d with a friend, or pressing the wrong button in the backend – mistakes in the ecommerce world can be very costly. 

While you cannot rely on each member of your team being a security expert, you can take the necessary steps to minimize that risk. 

Good employee awareness starts with the onboarding process. Along with the essential lessons about company values and job responsibilities, teaching your staff key cybersecurity procedures is always good. How to deal with incoming emails, what to do in case of downtimes, how to store passwords, and what are the proper backend safety practices – those are all vital questions that need answering from the get-go. 

As your ecommerce infrastructure evolves, so will your security procedures. This is why regular employee training sessions are also necessary so that everyone on your team is aware of their role in protecting your PrestaShop website. 

PrestaShop Security with ScalaHosting

PrestaShop store owners must work hard to ensure their websites meet security standards. Luckily, hosting providers like ScalaHosting understand the utmost importance of this aspect of site building, and we are eager to help as much as possible. 

By choosing Scala as a trusted partner in your ecommerce journey, you can enjoy plenty of added benefits. 

For starters, all our clients benefit from some unique tools that we develop in-house. One of those solutions is SShield – an advanced security monitoring system based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. SShield’s main purpose is to keep a watchful eye over your server and detect any suspicious behavior like web attacks, virus threats, and unauthorized access. Whenever a danger is identified – our system immediately notifies the site owner with suggestions for appropriate action. The best thing is that SShield keeps evolving – the more potential issues it detects, the more it learns and adds to its database. This is why our Scala monitoring tool is so effective, catching 99.98% of all potential server threats before they make a mess.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for all PrestaShop users. With ScalaHosting, they can also count on:

• Free SSL certificates
• Free CDN solutions
• Free backup & restore on a remote server
• Anti-spam filtering
• Email blacklist monitoring
• Mod_security protection
• Built-in brute force protection

While these features are all available even on the shared PrestaShop plans, ScalaHosting always recommends going for a managed VPS package if you intend to build a long-lasting ecommerce shop. 

Virtual private servers offer a huge improvement in performance and security compared to their shared counterparts. With the help of virtualization, VPS solutions give clients access to an isolated environment with a dedicated share of all server resources. Even if a hacker manages to gain control of an account on the same machine as yours, you are fully protected from that breach. 

What’s more, the ScalaHosting will be with you every step of the way. Apart from setting up your server in a secure data center, we will ensure all hardware and software are well-protected, and you will receive immediate assistance whenever you have an issue of any kind. You can contact the Scala operators 24/7 via live chat and ticketing, and you have the option to escalate your issue if the initial help is not enough.  

Conclusion

By now, it should be clear that building and promoting a PrestaShop website is relatively easy, but ensuring its security and the safety of your customers is an entirely different deal. We need to be aware of the various ways someone can gain unauthorized access or attack our ecommerce premises so we can proactively build impenetrable defenses. 

Be it data encryption, p​a​s​s​w​o​r​d protection, or anti-spam / anti-malware filtering – being prepared for the worst will help you aim to be the best. Your clients will certainly appreciate every effort.

Choosing the right PrestaShop hosting provider is priceless in that aspect. A knowledgeable host will not only ensure your web server is impervious to attacks but will also advise you on security methods you can apply for yourself.

FAQ

Q: How secure is PrestaShop?

A: As with other similar ecommerce builders, the PrestaShop developers have ensured their application is highly secure out of the box. Presta has its own firewall solution, allowing you to block suspicious traffic before it hits your hosting server. Additionally, you can activate a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt from your PrestaShop admin panel. 

To further enhance your security, you can check out some of the hundreds of add-ons specifically designed for this purpose.

Q: Is PrestaShop mobile-friendly?

A: Initially, PrestaShop was developed with a desktop-first mentality. However, as mobile usage skyrocketed in the last few years, the ecommerce app followed the trends and released a plethora of products that cater to visitors coming from different devices with various screen sizes. Today, you can find hundreds of PrestaShop templates and modules with responsive design, both free and paid.

Q: What are some good PrestaShop security plugins to consider?

A: While PrestaShop comes with impressive security features out of the box, you can never be too careful with your ecommerce site protection. You can find a variety of modules in the official Presta marketplace as well as third-party solutions. Some of the most popular and best-rated plugins include Security Pro, Captcha/reCaptcha, and Protect My Shop.