It would be super frustrating if you have an issue with your site that may be caused by other unknown circumstances and you believe that is not your fault. Let’s take an example of a Prestashop platform. Normally if you found an issue with this platform, the first thing that you should do is to look at their GitHub repository for existing solutions that people might have been reported there. If you found none especially if the issue is related to module incompatibility, then you might need to report to the Prestashop support team.
When you contact the support team, they may decide to gain access to your site so they can check the problem. So, before giving them this access, you need to think twice. If you want to make sure that they will not abuse when using the login information (eg: spying on sensitive information in your server), then it is time that you take these actions:
- Backup your site before giving them access
- Duplicate existing database but with different credential
- Change all prestashop usernames and passwords including the admin dashboard URL
- Change other sensitive information that you have in your public_html directory
- Only allow them to access through FTP connection with less permission only in public_html (do not ever gave them server root access)
- After they have gained access to your site and fixed the issue, you should compare the current site with the backup that you did previously to check for file modification. If some modifications look suspicious, you should file a complain.
- Use aide file integrity tool to check for modification (You can use this script to check server file for modification: https://github.com/sofibox/maxiaide_public)
Remember, do not trust anyone online when giving access credentials even they are a big company!
