X-Cart Security

X-Cart makes it easy for nearly anyone with the desire to establish an e-commerce store to do so, however not everyone has the background knowledge to know to address security issues. Many store owners begin designing, adding products, and focusing on sales and SEO without ensuring that their x-cart e-commerce store is developed in a secure environment with a focus on security. Once established often x-cart store owners are not aware of what is required to maintain their x-cart in a manner that keeps it secure over time.

The purpose of this tutorial is to assist you in understanding:

The importance of X-Cart security

Website security should always be a priority, but is absolutely crucial when dealing with e-commerce stores that transact and store sensitive customer data such as email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and credit card information. Reading through the x-cart forums you will find many x-cart store owners who have had the misfortune of having their x-cart hacked/exploited. Having worked with x-cart since 2002, I've had many of those store owners come to me asking what can be done to fix their store, and I have repeatedly heard the common response that nobody had ever talked to them about security and they were unaware of anything that needed to be done. Believe me when I say that if you are not aware of what is required to secure and maintain your x-cart, it is by sheer luck that your x-cart has not been hacked or exploited and it is only a matter of time before you become a victim. That said, by reading this tutorial you are well on your way to understanding and performing x-cart security to keep you and your customers safe.

Hosting X-Cart in a secure environment

The environment on which your x-cart is hosted is the base for all security, and if your host and/or server is not secure, all the security settings on your x-cart are not going to keep you from being exploited. There are generally two types of hosting: a shared server where you purchase a plan with a host and they provide you space for your site to reside on a server with many other clients, or a dedicated server, which is a computer where you can host your site(s) exclusively (a VPS is essentially a combination allowing dedicated server privileges in an environment shared with less users than with shared hosting).

Secured Shared Hosting

The main benefits of shared hosting is the reduced cost available by sharing the server with other users, and having the server company manage the server security. These same benefits can also pose a security threat however, as the sites of other clients can jeopardize your security if their sites are breached, and if you rely on a server company to secure a server and they fail to do so correctly, you can find yourself in serious trouble. To combat these potential problems, it is imperative that you host with a trusted hosting provider who makes server security a priority. View our recommended X-Cart Hosting providers.

Dedicated Server

Unmanaged

I unfortunately often see x-cart store owners establish or move to an unmanaged dedicated server without knowing the onus of security that falls on them in doing so. When working with an unmanaged server, you are responsible for ALL server security. This includes the configuration of all your server settings, as well as keeping your kernel, os, php/mysql, control panel, etc. up-to-date as new branches and patches are released. This is a daunting task for anyone not very experienced with server security, and is not recommended for the average user.

Managed

Surprisingly, having a managed server does not necessarily mean your server is secure. When purchasing a managed plan, it is important to know what the server provider will and won't do as part of your managed plan; it is not uncommon for someone to established a managed server and setup their site(s) thinking the host will take care of security, only to find their server exploited to which the server company responds saying they only perform security tasks upon request. If you rely on your host for a fully managed security package it is important that you work with a trusted hosting provider who takes security seriously, and ensure that all aspects of security are accounted for.

Server Management Companies

Personally, I recommend an unmanaged dedicated server package and then using the services of a server management company such as EZSM or TotalServerSolutions. These companies will configure your initial security settings, put processes in place to manage your security, and keep your server up-to-date as upgrades and patches are made available.

How to secure your X-Cart

After securing the hosting environment, it is necessary to address security with x-cart itself. Taking the following steps will make great strides in securing your x-cart:

Ensure you have a secure https connection for your store using a valid SSL certificate.
Do not use the "master" x-cart admin account. To change this, login using your "master" x-cart admin account, create a new administrator with a username that is less generic. Log in as that new user and delete the "master" user account.
Immediately password protect your admin and provider directories. You can usually password protect these directories using a control panel such as cPanel, or you can use .htaccess and .htpasswd files (run a quick google search if you are unsure how).

Be aware of your site's file permissions, as having loose file permissions in conjunction with an exploit, can allow someone to write and execute files on your website - this is a very common exploit against x-cart so take this seriously. In general your file chmod permissions should appear as follows:

File Type	Permission
*.php	644
*.tpl	644
*.pl	755
*.sh	755
/catalog/	777
/files/	777
/images/	777
/var/	777
/var/* folders	777
/var/* files	666

Turn off the option of sending credit card information in e-mails in the General Settings -> E-Mail Options section of your x-cart admin section.
Unless you are using the subscriptions module, do not store credit card information in your database. To disable, or to ensure that this setting is disabled, open your config.php file and ensure the $store_cc variable is set to false:

$store_cc = false;
It is always a good idea to log into your x-cart admin section using https so that the data you transact during the x-cart session is encrypted. The following code will force your x-cart admins/providers to login using https:// by redirecting them when http:// is used.

Add this code to the .htaccess of your admin section (adjust your url):

# Force https on the admin section
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond % !443
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.your-domain.com/xcart-dir/admin/$1 [R=301,L]

Add this code to the .htaccess of your provider section (adjust your url):

# Force https on the provider section
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond % !443
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.your-domain.com/xcart-dir/provider/$1 [R=301,L]
The following .htaccess code, which can be placed in an .htaccess file in your store's root directory (same directory as / and cart.php), will prevent access to sensitive areas of the x-cart file structure. If you are on a server that does not support .htaccess files, you will want to find alternate ways to block access to these files.

(NOTE: Change http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/ to the url to your error_message.php file.)

Options +SymlinksIfOwnerMatch -Indexes
RewriteEngine on

# Block access to sensitive directories
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/.pgp/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/patch\..*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/sql/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/schemes/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/skin1_original/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/Smarty.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/upgrade/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/var/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php

# Block access to sensitive file types
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*\.(ini|tpl|sql|log|conf|bak)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php

# Block access to sensitive files
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/COPYRIGHT http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/INSTALL.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/NEW.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/README http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/UPGRADE.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/VERSION http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/include/version\.php http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/config\.php http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/top\.inc\.php http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/install\.php$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php

Maintainance of x-cart security

A big mistake I see with users of software is thinking they can setup the software and run the software for an indefinite period of time. It is imperative with x-cart, and all software you run for that matter, that you apply security patches and upgrade as new releases are available. While the patches and upgrades do require time and/or money to apply, neglecting to do so can be potentially fatal to your business and they need to be made a priority.

X-Cart provides security and release bulletins that you can sign up for in your x-cart client account. Be sure to sign-up for these bulletins and stay on top of your security.

Authored by Jon Peters, founder of WebsiteCM, specializing in providing X-Cart mods, X-Cart addons and x-cart development services since 2002.