How to secure your old Joomla website?

Learning Joomla is a gradual process, though creating Joomla website doesn’t require programming expertize but requires hands on if you want to create complex designs with Joomla. To develop a Joomla website, there are many facts which you should consider and one of them is “Joomla website security”. Recent studies on Joomla website show around 45% are still using a Joomla 1.5 version, which raises security risk. Security is equally important to all website, inspite of the fact being simple website or a complex Joomla “e-Learning” website. In this article, we have put some tips that can help you to make your old Joomla website secure.

Things to do:

1. Version Check: If you still not on Joomla 1.5.26 and running on Joomla 1.5.12 or Joomla 1.5.3 then you need to consider updating immediately. Joomla.org has already closed doors to Joomla 1.5.26, so immediately update to Joomla 1.5.26 today. If you still running with old versions of Joomla, then perhaps your site is under attack.

2. (Jos_) security holes: Security threats in Joomla 1.6 are due to the default database prefix (Jos_) which could be hacked by SQL injection. To check this, you need to change the Jos_ prefix and make changes to configuration .php.

3. Default super Admin: In Joomla 1.5 version it is not possible to change default admin user id or name. So it is needed done manually by creating another super admin and you login into newly created admin account and deleted the account with ‘admin’ user name.

4. Change path to admin panel: To protect Joomla website from hackers it necessary to change the path of admin access, which will block access to the admin panel via .htaccess. Moreover, it will help you to hide CMS of your website. Hackers determining your website CMS make can exploit it very easily. So it is advisable not to promote your website make.

5. Broken Links: Broken links are bad from SEO and user perspectives, users may leave your website if they find site got struck due to broken links. You can remove or find broken links easily with the help of free tools like W3C link checker or any other web tolls easily available.

There are certain best practices which may help your Joomla website performance.

1. Delete useless extensions: Always try to buy Joomla extensions that best suits your need. Uploaded too much of free extensions can slowdown the website loading.
2. Stronger Password: Set Admin password very strong, which is difficult to guess.
3. Check site malware frequently.

All the mentioned steps above are all temporary measures, and will act as shield to protect your website from hackers. So it is advisable to upgrade to new Joomla version and save time and money.