Host Security and Backups

Keeping your personal PC clean of infections is another way to help ensure your website will not be infected. Some forms of malicious software have the ability to traverse from your PC onto your website. Infections on your computer have access to your files and inner workings of your computer. They can capture login information or retrieve login information that you have saved in your web browser or FTP programs. Some infections have enough intelligence to upload themselves automatically to your website if they have your login information. They then use your website as a platform to infect more computers i.e. your clients. You need to make sure you don’t save any website passwords in any programs on your PC, that includes website control panels, CMS admin pages, FTP, and database passwords. We talked about some aspects of basic host security in our previous blog entry. Those methods are good preventative measures for keeping your computer clean.

Periodic website backups are another simple tool to help shield your website from harm. Most hosting companies provide some form of backup for your website, however some do not. It might be a good idea to contact them to find out what is and what isn’t backed up and how often. If your hosting provider does not provide backups of your website, then it is up to you. Nightly backups are the recommended interval for sites that update often. If your site is mostly static for long periods of time, a monthly backup should suffice. This way should something go wrong, it can be replaced with only a short period of downtime.

Using methods described in these 3 articles will dramatically reduce your chances of website infection. If you are concerned about the status of your own website, you can use a website called URL Void to monitor the status of your website. It will not however assist you with removal of infections, or blacklist removal. Ping IT Services however does provide these services, should you need them please contact us for prompt service. Thanks again for visiting, stay safe out there!