How to Install Magento 2 Security Patches

Security plays a role as one of the most vital elements that every store owner is concerned about in their eCommerce stores. Especially, when digital fraud becomes a serious alarm that can threaten your business. Seemingly, every day, there are many news stories about cybersecurity threats, such as phishing attacks, hacking and credit card fraud, data errors, or unprotected online services, and more.

Suppose, unfortunately, there is any security hole on your website, it can potentially cause many risks, and as a result, your website will be broken. Luckily, Magento offers Security Patches with different versions that help your eCommerce store minimize these holes. Don’t skip this article if you are searching How to install Magento 2 security patches”, as you have come to the right post.

Table of Contents

• What are security patches in Magento 2?
• Reasons you need Magento 2 security patches
• How to install Security patches in Magento 2
  • Using Composer
  • Using the command line
  • Using Github
• Some tips should do before installing Magento 2 Security patches
  • Backup your Database
  • Enable Maintenance Mode
  • Check all patches
• How to keep Magento 2 store secure
• Final Words

What are security patches in Magento 2?

It can be said that a security patch is a fix of a program that helps exclude the vulnerabilities caused by potential attackers. These fixes are supplied in the form of a self-installing code. It means that you can install these security fixes even if your application is running, and they will be automatically updated as well as save the result. Please note that any security patch files are launched for your software; you must install them as soon as possible.

However, many sources provide security patches now; you should choose an official and reliable source to install; otherwise, other sources may offer harmful patches for the software application on your website.

Reasons you need Magento 2 security patches

Any store should also install security patches to protect from malicious hackers. If not, it means that your website is open and potential attackers can access your website’s admin board as well as attract your eCommerce store anytime with ease. The result of ignoring security patches is extremely dangerous. Below are 4 common consequences of a Magento 2 store if your website is hacked.

• Credit card information of the customers can get stolen
• Ransomware can be installed into your website
• Webstore servers can get compromised by attackers
• Malware can be installed into your shop, further spreading and affecting your visitors directly

You can check the list of the most essential Magento security patches launched last year: https://magento.com/security. Recently, Magento has enhanced the security for eCommerce websites with reCaptcha and Two-Factor authentication; you can also install them to protect your website from hackers.

How to install Security patches in Magento 2

There is no universal method to install security patches in Magento 2 due to variations in the hosting environment. Thus, we list 3 ways to install Magento 2 Security patches below; you can choose the most convenient one to apply.

Using Composer

Suppose you use Composer to install Magento 2 security patches. In that case, it’s extremely important to perform comprehensive testing before deploying any patch on your website in order to find the issue with your coding. After completing this step, it’s time to apply a security patch on your site by following these steps.

Note: Merchants running Magento 2.4.0 should upgrade to Magento 2.4.1 because released patches in this version resolve important vulnerabilities for eCommerce stores.

Step 1: First, please open your command line application and then navigate to access your project directory.

Step 2: You need to add the cweagans/composer-patches plugin to the composer.json file.

composer require cweagans/composer-patches

Step 3: Next, you only need to modify the composer.json file and add the following section to specify:

• Module: “magento/module-payment”
• Title: “MAGETWO-56934: Checkout page freezes when ordering with Authorize.net with invalid credit card”
• Path to patch: “patches/composer/github-issue-6474.diff”

For instance:

 "extra": {
      "composer-exit-on-patch-failure": true,
      "patches": {
          "magento/module-payment": {
              "MAGETWO-56934: Checkout page freezes when ordering with Authorize.net with invalid credit card": "patches/composer/github-issue-6474.diff"
          }
      }
  }

If a patch affects multiple modules, you have to create some patch files targeting different modules.

Step 4: It’s time to apply the patch. You can use the -v option only if you want to see the debugging information.

composer -v install

Step 5: Final, update the composer.lock file. The lock file will track that patches have been applied to each Composer package in an object.

composer update --lock

Using the command line

Step 1: First, you need to use SSH, SFTP, FTP, or any normal transport method so as to upload the local file into the on the server.

Step 2: Next, log into the server as the Magento admin user to validate that the file is located in the right directory.

Step 3: In the command-line interface, please run the below command :

patch < patch_file_name.patch

The command that assumes the patched file is located in the patch file.

Suppose you see “File to patch” in the command line; remember that it can not be located in the intended directory, whether you see that the patch seems correct. The command line terminal will show a box that contains the patched file in the first line. Everything you need to do now is to copy and paste the file path into the “File to patch”.

Step 4: To complete the installation and allow the system to build a new cache, please flush the cache in the Admin by navigating to System > Tools > Cache Management.

Using Github

Step 1: Generate a directory for patches.

You need to navigate the website’s working directory and create a patch directory for storing Magento patches.

Step 2: Next, please copy Magento patches to the generated directory.

You can precisely use SSH, FTP-client, and other tools you see suitably for this step.

Step 3: Final, create a patch file.

Run the following command git diff > ./patches/patchForModule.patch.

Some tips should do before installing Magento 2 Security patches

Backup your Database

Doing backup for your Magento 2 store is extremely necessary. Remember that you must back up your files and database before applying a security patch to protect all data from disappearance through Backup Management as well as avoid all risks for your website, like system crash or data losses. All databases after the backup will be auto-restored in the correct places.

How to create a Magento 2 Backup

• Store admins can easily access this feature in the backend.
• Login to the admin panel, press System > in the Tools section, choose Backups.
• Please click on the button to choose the type of backup you want to create as System Backup, Database, and Media Backup or Database Backup in the upper-right corner.

Enable Maintenance Mode

Maintenance Mode is a vital mode in Magento 2, which is used to temporarily disable your Magento store for testing your website before going live, maintenance tasks like fixing bugs, updating, and so on. Luckily, Magento provides this helpful feature; please note that you should enable Maintenance Mode before applying a security patch on your eCommerce website. When you enable this mode, visitors coming to your websites will get a message “Service Temporarily Unavailable” instead of the frontend store.

Check all patches

You had better test all patches before deploying to production. Testing the security patches is mandatory to ensure correctness and smoothness before your website goes live. By doing this, you can completely make sure that there is no risk occurring on your Magento store after applying a patch.

As soon as completing the patch’s installation, you can quickly check whether the patch has been applied successfully via https://www.magereport.com/. This is the most useful tool that not only helps scan your Magento shop but also checks all vulnerabilities on your website quickly.

How to keep Magento 2 store secure

Below are 3 ways that help you to keep protecting your Magento 2 store from potential attackers.

• The best way is to install the Security module for Magento 2 to prevent hackers from attacking your online store. This is a perfect security suite for any online store to keep bad guys out. Also, thanks to an intelligent warning system, a warning message will be sent to the email if your website encounters any intrusion.

• The other way is to do a security audit at least once a quarter to ensure that the code core of the system is secure. Especially when you install a new plugin or upgrade to a new version, of course, your Magento version is outdated and more vulnerable.

• The final way is to reset your admin, SSH or other passwords on your eCommerce store at least once a quarter. Doing this will prevent the hackers from attacking your Magento 2 store as well as cause critical consequences on the website.

Final Words

To sum up, installing Security Patches plays an important role for any Magento 2 store. Not only does it help your website avoid vulnerabilities, but it also prevents potential hackers from attacking and causing the critical consequences that affect your website’s reputation. Hopefully, through our blog, you will get a helpful guide on How to install Security Patches in Magento 2.

Suppose you are facing any issue regarding a security hole on the Magento 2 store, please feel free to comment below as well as contact us; we will support you as soon as possible. Also, share our article with your friends if you see that it is helpful.

Thanks a lot for reading!