What is a Magento Code Audit?
A code audit for your Magento site is like a report card – it assesses how your site is doing in different areas. A Magento Certified Developer reviews your core Magento code, any custom code, and any additional code, such as extensions. This comprehensive analysis evaluates three main factors: security, performance, and health. Each of these areas is given a letter grade rating with specific notes and recommendations for improvement.
1. Security
The security audit includes a review of security patches, a complete code audit (looking at any core changes, extensions, standalone files), payment configuration, administrator accounts, and known symptoms of common Magento hacks. The developer compares the site code to the Magento code base and make sure the code has not been compromised and follows best practices. Next, they will check for any vulnerabilities, security patches, or problems with payment methods. This includes the site itself, the admin panel, and the database. Recommendations in this area may involve applying Magento security patches, changing admin passwords, disabling certain settings, or adding security services that may be of value.
2. Performance
The performance audit looks at site performance, identifying any low-hanging fruit or particular areas that should be evaluated first. This section evaluates speed for various pages, hosting services,
response time, use of compression, 404s, and third-party issues. Performance also accounts for user experience factors, such as site design and theme, navigation, responsiveness, product information, and consistency. Recommendations for performance may include design improvements, total site redesign, optimization, upgrading to new versions for faster speed, or eliminating duplicates or requests.
3. Health
The health audit looks at your extensions, theme, database, filesystem, core edits, etc. for anything that’s out of place, problematic, or contrary to best practices. The developer will look at the Magento core code to identify any edits or overrides, review any disabled modules or extensions, evaluate the filesystem for organization, look at the database size and number of logs, and more. Possible recommendations may include removing disabled modules or extensions, cleaning up the filesystem, reducing database size, fixing edits or overrides, changing certain settings, or fixing missing records.
Why Do I Need One?
No one wants to have their site crash during Cyber Monday or leave customer data open to hackers. That’s why a Magento Code Audit is important – it can identify and fix issues on your site before they become a problem for customers and for you. If an issue has already affected your site, the code audit can help discover the source of the problem so it can be stopped and prevented from happening again. For example, a code audit can detect hacks, backdoors, and other vulnerabilities that may be responsible for stolen credit card information. The audit can be used to help determine the next steps that should be taken with a site, from minor fixes to an update to a migration. It is also crucial that a Magento-specialized developer completes the audit – they have the detailed knowledge that is needed to really understand what is going on with your Magento site.
The completed report is presented to a client within 7-10 business days. Recommendations can be implemented by a client’s own development team, or ParadoxLabs can execute them. The recommendations are customized for each client and are as detailed as possible, including lists of specific files or modules to be removed, fixes or changes to be made, and all other actions to be taken. This makes it easy for a client to understand exactly what the issues are and how they can be remedied. Upon request, a deeper analysis can be performed on a selected area or known problem.
Make sure your site is stable, secure, and operating at peak performance.