| If you don't make regular backups of your Joomla | | | | website. |
| website, you are like a person with no health | | | | If you don't know how to use your cPanel to create |
| insurance: you're fine until a disaster hits you. Don't | | | | backups, you can install a free, easy-to-use backup |
| get caught without site insurance: Make regular, | | | | extension for Joomla: Joomlapack. Joomlapack allows |
| complete backups of your website. | | | | you to easily create a complete backup of your |
| A few of my clients have had their Joomla website | | | | Joomla website files and Joomla database with one |
| hacked. In one case, the hacker got the client's ftp | | | | click. Plus, the backup includes an installation script |
| and cpanel login info. She hadn't changed it in several | | | | that makes is very easy to completely re-install your |
| years. If the other cases, I think the hacker found a | | | | website. In addition to regular backups of your |
| vulnerability in a Joomla extension. In all cases, the | | | | website, there are several other things you can do |
| website was down and they were losing business | | | | to prevent hackers from destroying your website: |
| and traffic every minute their site was down. | | | | - Download and install the latest version of Joomla. |
| Some of these clients had a clean backup of their | | | | Joomla continually creates security updates that will |
| site, and some didn't. The clients who didn't have a | | | | help keep your site more secure. |
| clean backup of their site were in for a LOT OF | | | | - Regularly change your passwords to Joomla, your |
| PAIN. Without a clean backup of your site, you might | | | | hosting cpanel, your ftp, and any other accounts that |
| be forced to completely rebuild your website. This | | | | can access your web site. |
| could put your website out of commission for weeks. | | | | - Make sure your file and folder permissions are set |
| A clean backup of your website is a backup of all | | | | correctly. See the Joomla Security Checklist at |
| your files, including the Joomla database, when | | | | docs.joomla.org/Category:Security_Checklist). |
| everything was working correctly. Whenever you | | | | - Review the Joomla Security Checklist. Some of the |
| make significant changes to your website, you should | | | | information is pretty technical, but follow as many of |
| make a backup, and store these backups on your | | | | the recommendations as you can. If you don't |
| computer. I recommend keeping several versions of | | | | understand the security recommendations, you might |
| the backups. For example, if you backup once a | | | | need to hire a website professional to help you, and |
| week, keep 10 weeks of backups. And remember, | | | | ask your website host to help with the |
| the more frequently you backup your site, the less | | | | recommendations concerning your web server's |
| work you will lose if you have to restore your | | | | configuration. |