What our July security incident taught us, and the AI risk every Shopify merchant should check today

Over the past two weeks, a wave of checkout hijack and phishing attacks has hit Shopify stores through several third-party apps. Store owners want to know which apps are safe and whether their own Shopify store could be hacked next.

We went through a similar incident ourselves in July. We fixed it the same day and closed it fully with Shopify in August, and it is not part of this month's wave. But we know what that day felt like for the store owners who wrote to us: worried about their customers, unsure what to check, waiting for answers. There is still very little practical guidance out there, and we would rather share what we learned than stay quiet. This post covers what happened to us, what we changed afterwards, and one risk we think every merchant should check today, especially anyone who has given AI tools access to their store.

Notice: Qikify apps are not involved in the checkout attacks reported since 10 October. A public write-up tracking those cases lists our July incident as an earlier case, which we fixed the same day and closed with Shopify in August. All Qikify apps are running normally.

On 22 July 2026, we found that a vulnerability in two of our apps, Qikify Sticky Add to Cart and Qikify Mega Menu & Navigation, had been exploited. An unauthorized third party injected a script into customizable HTML fields in the app settings. On affected stores, some shoppers who clicked Checkout or Add to Cart were sent to a fake page outside Shopify before being returned to the real checkout.

The vulnerability was in our apps, so this was on us. We are sorry to every merchant whose store was affected, and to their customers who trusted those stores at checkout. We detected and fixed the issue within the same day (between 12:30 and 22:40 UTC) and removed the malicious script from every affected store. No Shopify store data, customer records or API data was accessed, and no Shopify account credentials were compromised through our system. Affected stores have received compensation from us. Compensation does not undo a stressful day, but we wanted merchants to see us take responsibility in more than words.

The full technical details are on our official security notice.

It is a fair question. The honest answer is that the threats changed faster than we did. AI has made everyone faster, attackers included: they can find weak points sooner and turn them into working attacks quickly. The customizable HTML fields we built to give merchants more flexibility became the way in. Shopify's security guidance for app developers uses this kind of settings field as an example of how malicious scripts end up on storefronts. We should have treated those fields as a risk earlier.

No app developer can promise it will never have a vulnerability. What you can check is how a developer responds when one is found: whether it tells merchants quickly and publicly, whether independent experts verify its fixes, whether it passes Shopify's review again, and whether you can reach a real person with questions. These are the standards we hold ourselves to, and the next section shows what we did.

Closing the vulnerability took one day. Making sure no other merchant would go through the same thing took much longer:

How we responded, from the same-day fix to Shopify's security review

1. Fixed on the same day and cleaned every affected store, then asked merchants to test their checkout to confirm.
2. Reviewed every Qikify app, not only the two involved, and audited every feature to find and close anything that could be abused in the same way.
3. Brought in an independent security firm to run a full Incident Report and a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Test, so our fixes were verified by someone other than us.
4. Completed Shopify's security review. Both apps returned to the Shopify App Store on 21 August 2026.
5. Kept merchants informed through in-app notices, email and a public incident page, with compensation for affected stores.

Since July, we treat every settings field that can write content onto a storefront as sensitive, with the same care we give to passwords, and we apply that to every app we build.

Since 10 October, stores using several other third-party apps have reported the same pattern: shoppers redirected from checkout to a fake payment page. Developer Roman Zipp has been tracking the cases in a detailed public write-up. Our July incident appears there as an earlier case that we closed in August (see the notice at the top of this post).

How the attackers got in this time is still being investigated by the affected developers and Shopify. We will not guess at other companies' root causes. What the wave does show is that attackers are going after anything that can put a script on a storefront. App developers' systems are one way in, but not the only one.

When people hear "app security", they think of app developers. That is fair, and after July we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

There is also a risk on the merchant's side that gets much less attention, and we would rather tell you about it now than after something goes wrong.

AI is now part of how many merchants run their stores. Some connect an AI assistant or a Shopify AI agent to their store, for example through a Shopify MCP server, to update products, handle orders or answer customers. Others use AI to build a custom app, script or integration in an afternoon, with no or little coding background. Both are useful, and both need access to your store. That also means more stores are running code and tools nobody has checked for security, often with far more access than they need. The mistake that worries us most is secret keys, such as a Shopify API key or access token, ending up somewhere public.

Whether you build a custom app or connect an AI tool, it works with your store through access you grant. When you create a custom app, Shopify gives you an Admin API access token and a client secret. Depending on the permissions you grant, that token can read and edit your products, orders, customers, theme, scripts, and so much more. If it leaks, a stranger can do the same.

Keys usually leak in ordinary ways:

• Pasted directly into theme code or a storefront script, where any visitor can read it
• Committed to a public GitHub repository without removing the credentials
• Shared in a chat, a doc, or with a freelancer, then never rotated
• Given to an AI tool or automation that has far broader access than it needs

Four ordinary ways a Shopify API key or access token ends up exposed

None of this takes a skilled hacker. Bots scan public code and websites for exposed keys all the time. Shopify's own security guidance says to keep secrets out of any code you ship, treat AI output as untrusted, and give AI systems as little authority as possible.

We say this as people who build Shopify apps every day: if you do not have a strong foundation in technical knowledge, be very careful with custom apps you build yourself with AI. Ask a developer to review anything that touches your store's API before it goes live, or use an app from a provider who is accountable for its security. Using AI to build is fine. The risk comes from putting that code live without anyone reviewing it. The same goes for AI tools that act on your store directly: give them only the permissions they need, and keep a person in the loop before they change orders, prices or anything customers see.

These steps apply to whichever apps you use, including ours. Do them today, then repeat every few weeks.

The 10-minute Shopify security check, ready to save

1. Test your checkout in an incognito window. Add a product to the cart, click Checkout, and confirm the address bar shows your real Shopify checkout.
2. Review your installed apps under Settings > Apps. Remove anything you no longer use or do not recognize.
3. Review your custom apps and their permissions. If an app has access it does not need, reduce it.
4. Rotate any key that has ever been shared, pasted into code, or given to an AI tool or freelancer you no longer work with.
5. Check which AI tools and automations can access your Shopify account, and remove the ones you do not actively use.
6. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) for your Shopify account, every staff account, and every app account that offers it.
7. Act fast if something looks wrong. Contact the app developer and Shopify immediately; minutes matter.

Every store owner who installs our apps is trusting us with their business and their customers. July reminded us how much that trust weighs, and we do not take it lightly. Merchants also control access to their own stores, and AI tools have made it easier to give that access away by accident. Shoppers are safest when both of us look after our part.

If you have questions about our July incident, read our official security notice or contact us at contact@qikify.com. And if you are unsure whether something you built or connected with AI is safe, write to us, even if you do not use any Qikify app. We will tell you what to check.