Copahost Forum

[Mark]

Use secure passwords. The simplest type of attack is a brute force attack – a script will try to guess your password, using random letters and numbers. A combination of lower and upper case letters plus numbers will make the password much more secure – L37m31n. If possible, you can also add symbols to make your password even more secure. However, have in mind to keep your passwords easy to remember – you wouldn’t want to forget your password and not be able to log into your mail, for example.

Check your files’ permissions. On a Linux sever, the file permissions will determine who can access and modify your files. Select your permissions so that only you can edit them, and avoid using 777 permissions – a file with such permissions can be edited and executed by anybody, which is dangerous.

Check for common vulnerabilities. Cross-site scripting and SQL injections are the usual suspects – there are a lot of tools, which can help you check if your site is secure. Such vulnerabilities are most commonly found in custom developed websites – the popular CMS scripts are usually well protected against such attacks.

Use the latest software versions. While this may sound like something, which everybody knows and does, it’s not uncommon to find a very old version of a script running on a certain site. The words “it was working okay, so why update it” can sound like a reasonable excuse, right until the moment your site is hacked. Newer software versions often include security patches for exploits found in previous versions. This is very important if you are using a CMS script like Joomla or WordPress.