Website security is one of the biggest concerns of most website owners.  While it is difficult to completely protect your site, there are many steps that you can take to make your site as secure as possible and to help you prepare if your site is hacked.  There are too many types of website to go over all the ways to protect your site but the following guide should assist you in making your site more secure.

Backing up your account

Making regular backups of your website is very important, and is one of the best recommendations that we can provide as if your account is ever attacked you will have a "clean" version that you can upload. cPanel includes an easy backup utility that you can use to backup your entire website, including your databases, email, and files.

What can I do to protect my website?

There are numerous methods that hackers use to compromise a website, however the two most popular methods are:

• Vulnerabilities in the software you run on your hosting account
• Vulnerabilities in software that you run on your local computer

Vulnerabilities in the software you run on your hosting account

Most software that users run on their website is Open Source software. Open Source software is software that is freely available for anyone to download and use.  While using free software is a great way to build your website, one of the negatives is that hackers also have access to the code to find ways to exploit it.  Software such as WordPress and Joomla frequently update their software to help prevent and patch security issues, and it is highly recommend that you update your software whenever a new version is available.

The following is a list of links, for WordPress and Joomla specifically, that point to the software's own information about security:

WordPress

• How to Keep WordPress Secure
• Hardening WordPress
• Upgrading WordPress
• Hardening WordPress - Plugins

Joomla

• Joomla Security Center
• Upgrade Instructions
• Vulnerable Extensions List

Did you code and develop your website yourself?

If you coded your own website, knowing common hacking techniques will help you make your site more secure.  The following is a list of links to articles on Wikipedia that provide more information on common hacking techniques:

• SQL injection
• Code injection
• Cross-site scripting (XSS)
• Remote file inclusion

Vulnerabilities in software that you run on your local computer

Not only do Open Source applications like Joomla and WordPress release updates on a regular basis, but programs that run from your computer also update regularly and  any vulnerabilities can be used by hackers to attack your website. The following is a list of links to major software titles and information about the security updates they have available:

Adobe

• Adobe.com Security bulletins and advisories
• Adobe Reader
• Adobe Dreamweaver
• Adobe GoLive

Microsoft

• Microsoft.com - Windows Update 

Apple

• Apple.com - Apple security updates