For hackers and other unscrupulous actors, eCommerce platforms are often an easy target. Regardless of the platform, vulnerabilities, hacking, and spam represent a serious risk. Research indicates that bots compromise 70% of the traffic to eCommerce websites. Even during the peak of the sales season, this non-human traffic exceeds 80%. Building an eCommerce brand and a sizable consumer base takes several years. Protecting your website against malicious bots should be one of your top considerations if you operate an eCommerce store on the Magento platform. In this guide, we will make you aware of the process of how to secure Magento website from bad bots and spammers. Read on!
Risks of Bad Bots for Magento Websites
Before we make you know about the process of securing your Magento-based eCommerce portal, let’s delve in and explain the risks that can be posed by bad bots to your site. Here they are:
1. Theft of User Data
With the help of stolen user credentials, fraudsters utilize bots to make unlawful purchases. The brute force method is used to commit this theft. By taking control of stolen user accounts, they can also transfer money, gift cards, reward points, and other items without authorization.
2. Slashing Prices
Competitors slash prices off of products to compete with your dynamic pricing. To prevent new eCommerce websites from undercutting them on prices, they use bots to gather pricing information from the website under review and alter their pricing strategy in real-time.
3. Creating Fake Accounts
Bots are used by hackers for creating fake accounts. This way they can perform various frauds like spreading malware, spamming content, and twisting website SEO.
4. Web Scraping
Bots may be used by your rivals to scrape your original content and reuse it elsewhere. Your website’s SEO will suffer immediately if your content has been reused on other websites. You’ll begin to lose visitors and search engine rankings.
That’s not all! There can be many more risks due to bad bots on your Magento site. Now the question arises, how to secure Magento website from these nasty bots? This is where the below-given section will help you out. Have a nudge on the tips given and protect your Magento site like a pro.
How to Secure Magento Website from Bad Bots?
1. Keep your Portal Always Up to Date
If you don’t want any trouble with your Magento website, consider updating it on a regular basis. For this, you need to stay aware and have a tab on the arrival of new security patches, version updates, or bug fixes related to the platform. By keeping your eCommerce site up to date, you can make it secure from the vulnerabilities often exploited by bots and spammers.
2. Use a Strong Password
Alike your phone, your website also demands protection. You must take care of your site just like you would lock down your phone with a secure password. That’s why, we want you to draw on unique and hard-to-crack passwords on your Magento site. You can create a password using by combining capital and lowercase letters, symbols, numerals, etc. Make sure you don’t use birthdays or guessable information as a password. Also, set a reminder to change the password of your Magento account at least once a month.
Implement CAPTCHA
Another way to secure your Magento website from spammers and bad bots is the implementation of Captcha. Admin > System > Configuration > Customer Configuration Settings is where you can easily enable CAPTCHA. The major drawback of employing the outdated, conventional CAPTCHA is that it will be awful for your website’s users.
For the time being, the best recommendation is to switch to the new Google ReCaptcha service from the default Magento CAPTCHA. You can make use of third-party modules to complete the task. Furthermore, you must install third-party plugins as Magento does not support the standard CAPTCHA for the contact form.
Use Web Server Configuration
Using web server configuration to block harmful bots is one efficient way to stop them. You can stop malicious bots from ever accessing your Magento website by putting in place particular rules and settings at the server level. This approach involves using tools like rate limitation, user-agent filtering, and IP blocking.
Use Magento Extensions
To block bad bots effectively within your Magento website, you can use Magento extensions specifically designed for bot detection and prevention. These extensions provide advanced features and functionalities to identify and block malicious bots, ensuring the security and smooth operation of your online store.
To Sum Up
Points jotted in this how-to guide are sure to help you when it comes to securing your Magento website from bad bots and spammers. If you need expert assistance to maintain, optimize, and secure your Magento website, contact our experts anytime.
You can also check our guide on how to deal with the ‘Exception printing is disabled’ error in Magento.
