Below is a list of the top 5 tips that most WordPress administrators do not do, but should:

1. Don’t use the admin account – The default user account that is created with every installation of WordPress is the admin account. Unfortunately the entire world knows this, including hackers, and can easily launch a dictionary attack on your website to try and guess your password. If a hacker already knows your username that’s half the battle. It’s highly recommended to delete or change the admin account username.

2. Move your wp-config.php file – Did you know since WordPress 2.6 you can move your wp-config.php file outside of your root WordPress directory? Most users don’t know this and the ones that do don’t do it. To do this simply move your wp-config.php file up one directory from your WordPress root. WordPress will automatically look for your config file there if it can’t find it in your root directory.

3. Change the WordPress table prefix – The WordPress table prefix is wp_ by default. You can change this prior to installing WordPress by changing the $table_prefix value in your wp-config.php file, we recommend an unique value such as rtyujikj_. If a hacker is able to exploit your website using SQL Injection, this will make it harder for them to guess your table names and quite possibly keep them from doing SQL Injection at all.

4. Use Secret Keys – This is probably the most followed security tip on the list, but still amazed at how many people don’t do this. A secret key is a hashing salt that is used against your password to make it even stronger. Secret keys are set in your wp-config.php file. Simply visit https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1 to have a set of randomly generated secret keys created for you. Copy the 4 secret keys to your wp-config.php file and save. You can add/change these keys at any time, the only thing that will happen is all current WordPress cookies will be invalidated and your users will have to log in again.

5. htaccess lockdown – This is actually my favorite tip from my presentation. Using a .htaccess file you can lockdown your wp-admin directory by IP address. This means only IP addresses you specify can access your admin dashboard URLs. This makes it impossible for anyone else to try and hack your WordPress backend. To do this simply create a file called .htaccess and add the following code to your file, replacing xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your IP address:

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Access Control"
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
#IP address to Whitelist
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

You can add more “allow from” lines so make sure to add any IP addresses you plan on accessing your site from (ie Home, Work, etc). Remember most ISP use dynamic IPs, so your IP address may change on reconnecting to your ISP. If you get locked out just update your .htaccess file or delete it all together. This obviously is not a good tip if you allow open registrations as you need to allow your users access to wp-admin.

So, how many of these tips do you follow regularly?

Joomla! is a great CMS that is used worldwide. For this reason, hackers often try to find a way to hack a Joomla! website. Here are 7 tips to optimise Joomla! security, preventing your Joomla! website getting hacked.

Always remember to make a regular backup of your website & database. If you still get hacked, you can always get back to an older version of your website. Make sure you find out which extension caused the vulnerability and un-install it.

More so, check the Joomla! website, and UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE.

Change the default database prefix (jos_)

Most SQL injections that are written to hack a Joomla! website, try to retrieve data from the jos_users table. This way, they can retrieve the username and password from the super administrator of the website. Changing the default prefix into something random, will prevent (most / all) SQL injections.

You can set the database prefix when installing your Joomla! website. If you’ve already installed Joomla! and want to change your prefix, do the following:

1. Log on to your Joomla! back-end.
2. Go to your global configuration and search for the database
3. Change your database prefix (Example: fdasqw_) and press Save.
4. Go to phpMyAdmin to access your database.
5. Go to export, leave all default values and press Start. Exporting the database can take a while.
6. When done, select all code and copy it to notepad (or any other text editor)
7. In phpMyAdmin, select all tables and delete them
8. In notepad, do a Search & replace (Ctrl + H). Set the searchterm to jos_ and change it into your new prefix (Example: fdasqw_). Press “Replace all”.
9. Select everything in your notepad file and copy it. In phpMyAdmin, go to SQL, paste the queries and press Start.

Remove the version number / name of extensions

Most vulnerabilities only occur in a specific release of a specific extension. Showing MyExtension version 2.14 is a really bad thing. You can modify this message to only the name of the extension by doing the following:

1. Retrieve all files of the extension from your server.
2. Open up Dreamweaver.
3. Load any file from the extension that you just downloaded to your local machine.
4. Use the Search function and set the search to Search through specified folder. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the exploit to.
5. Set the search term to “MyExtension version 2.14” and press OK.
6. When found the correct file, remove the version number.
7. Upload the changed file to your server and check if the changes are made.

Use a SEF component

Most hackers use the Google inurl: command to search for a vulnerable exploit. Use Artio, SH404SEF or another SEF component to re-write your URL’s and prevent hackers from finding the exploits.

Additionally, you’ll get a higher rank in Google when using search engine friendly URL’s.

Keep Joomla! and extensions up to date

This one is pretty obvious. Always check for the latest versions of Joomla! and the extensions you’re using. Many vulnerabilities are resolved most of the times in later versions.

Use the correct CHMOD for each folder and file

Setting files or folders to a CHMOD of 777 or 707 is only necessary when a script needs to write to that file or directory. All other files should have the following configuration:

• PHP files: 644
• Config files: 666
• Other folders: 755

Delete leftover files

When you installed an extension that you didn’t like, don’t set the extension to unbublished. If you do, the vulnerable files will still be on your website. So simply use the un-install function to totally get rid of the extension.

Change your .htaccess file

Add the following lines to your .htaccess file to block out some common exploits.

########## Begin - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits
#
# Block out any script trying to set a mosConfig value through the URL
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} mosConfig_[a-zA-Z_]{1,21}(=|%3D) [OR]
# Block out any script trying to base64_encode crap to send via URL
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode.*(.*) [OR]
# Block out any script that includes a < script> tag in URL
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C).*script.*(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
# Block out any script trying to set a PHP GLOBALS variable via URL
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
# Block out any script trying to modify a _REQUEST variable via URL
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
# Block out any script that tries to set CONFIG_EXT (com_extcal2 issue)
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} CONFIG_EXT([|%20|%5B).*= [NC,OR]
# Block out any script that tries to set sbp or sb_authorname via URL (simpleboard)
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} sbp(=|%20|%3D) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} sb_authorname(=|%20|%3D)
# Send all blocked request to homepage with 403 Forbidden error!
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]
#
########## End - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits

For more Joomla! security tips, you can read the following:

• Joomla Administrators Security Checklist
• Visit the Joomla! security forums (1.0 and 1.5)

Keep an eye on websites listing Joomla! vulnerabilities:

• Secunia
• FrSIRT
• Milw0rm

If you have more tips to enhance the security of Joomla!, we would really like to hear from you.