We often receive questions from customers concerned with keeping their website(s) secure. They want to know how to keep their website safe from all of those annoying hackers and script kiddies who mean them harm.
The first thing we always suggest is to find a web host that takes security seriously. Around here security is of the utmost concern. We don't want to get all technical on you, but here is a small list of just some of what we do to make sure our customers are safe when hosting with us:
- Servers are Reliable, Hardened, and Secure
- Server operating system and control panel installation modified for security
- Firewall Protection
- Brute Force Detection and Evasion
- Apache Dos Prevention/Protection
- Email virus filtering
- File management with secure and correct permissions
A good number of our customers are using Joomla! CMS, so they ask specific questions about what they can do to stay safe. The main thing you want to be concerned with is keeping your Joomla version updated. You can check the version of your Joomla! 1.5 cms site when logged into your admin area by going to Help > System Info and looking next to "Joomla! Version". You can always find the newest version of Joomla! by going here.
The other main thing you want to be concerned with if you're a Joomla user is your 3rd party extensions. Oftentimes developers of these extensions aren't all too concerned with keeping their extensions secure which can leave your site wide open to hackers. Even if they are keeping things on the up-and-up, it still can be difficult to keep up with all of the updates.
Luckily, Joomla has just made keeping up with 3rd party extension security a bit easier for all of us by releasing an RSS feed to their existing vulnerable extensions list. Make sure to read up on how to make good use of the RSS feed, subscribe to it, and start using it!
