How to secure Joomla website?
When you want to keep your Joomla site safe, then you need to keep the Joomla installation base up to date. When you do this, like any other software, the bugs are fixed and the other security threats are identified at the earliest and the solution is easily found. The security strike team of Joomla deals with identifying the potential vulnerabilities and fixes all the problems related to the security measures in Joomla. The easy way to get to know about Joomla site is through the official Joomla website. Also, the updates are always published to a great number of audience, and the same can be got from Facebook, Twitter and Google +. Read through to know how to secure Joomla website.
You can get to know about the Joomla version you use by logging into the administrator area or if you do not have an access to the same, you can contact the developers. Here is the list of the Joomla versions with a brief description:
Joomla 1.0.x- this is no more supported and a red strip across the page on the top can be found. The stable version that is recent of this is Joomla 1.0.15.
Joomla 1.5.x: this version too has been deprecated and no official support is offered now. Even extension developers have stopped offering support. The top right of the page offers the version.
Joomla 1.6.x & 1.7.x: you can see a blue stripe on the top of the page. These versions are short termed and no longer supported.
Joomla 2.5.x : this is the version that is current and stable and has a blue stripe across the page top. You can also see the version number at the bottom of the page.
To keep your Joomla site secured, you need to migrate to the current stable version. If you are using versions like 1.0.x, 1.5.x, 1.6.x and 1.7.x, then you need to know it is high time to migrate to 2.5.x version of Joomla. If you are not an expert to carryout the migration, it is better to carry out through the specialist’s help.
Updating extensions:
It is very essential to update the extensions, next only to managing the Joomla site. You can get these patched from the extension developers. Or you can see that these are vulnerable than Joomla that is not in the current stable version itself. You can also sign up for the mailing lists and get instant knowledge about the new extensions published.
Accessibility of the admin portal:
You need to keep the admin part of your website hidden. If you can access the admin area through mysite.com/administrator, then anybody else who thinks that you run your site on Joomla too can do the same. So, you need to maintain a secret word to make the admin area more secured. Also, the admin of the default version should not be enabled. For instance, you would have created the site using the 1.5.x version and now moved to 2.5 version. But the same admin username still would be existing and anyone can make use of the same.
Create Back Up:
There are facilities to push the back up of your site to another remote facility. You can store the backup in Amazon S3 or in Dropbox. You need to test the backups more frequently and it is more important than creating backups itself.
You can recreate the site in a couple of minutes with many softwares that aid in back up creation and testing.
Most important of all is to keep a track of things. Make sure you update the site once every Joomla update is released. If your site is not updated then you are exposed to security threats of Joomla site.
