Keeping your CMS secure

All hosting servers are scanned by a Content Management System Scanner called Shone Security. The purpose of this scanner is to check whether or not your website is running a vulnerable Content Management System (CMS).

Why is it important to keep my CMS up to date?

If your website is running a vulnerable CMS version, your website is not only at risk of being defaced but due to the severity of the exploit it can also result in potential data loss. These kinds of vulnerabilities don't just affect you, they can cause service interrupts and often downtime for other Imaginet clients as well.

How does Shone Security work?

The Shone Security Scanner will perform a scan on a monthly basis to check if your site is vulnerable or not, if it is you will receive an email notification informing you that your website is insecure and that your CMS versions will need to be updated. You will have the option to either unsubscribe or turn off the notifications but if this is done and your website is exploited we do reserve the right to suspend it until the problem is resolved.

What do I do if my website is vulnerable?

So you have received an email notification stating that your website is running a vulnerable CMS, now what?? As a hosting company we try to provide as much information as possible to help you get the problem resolved.

1. You can get your web developer or third party company to perform the upgrade for you.
2. You can perform the upgrade yourself, we have provided some documentation on how to perform the upgrades which can be found here, please note that if there isn't any documentation listed for your CMS you will be require to do the necessary research to do so.
3. If you are not sure or unable to get hold of your web developer and would like to get this sorted out we can perform the upgrade for you the but Standard CMS Maintenance charge will apply - For further information regarding pricing please contact Imaginet Sales for a quote.

I would like to do the upgrade myself, what should I do first?

Before any upgrade is performed, you need to ensure that you`ve made a recent backup of your website. We will not be held responsible for any data loss should your upgrade be unsuccessful. If you are unsure on how to perform a backup of your website, we can do this for you but you will be charge a backup fee, for further information please click [here].

Once you have made a backup of your website, you will then need to either consult the documentation provided by us or use the documentation provided for your specific CMS which can be found [here]

What if I decide to ignore the email notification and my website gets exploited?

If no action is taken after you have received the notification, Imaginet reserves the right to suspend your website until the problem has been resolved. We will also not be held responsible for any data-loss incurred as a result of an exploit.

If your website gets exploited before you have received the email notification and is affecting other Imaginet clients or does not conform to the Imaginet T&C’s provided [here] we reserve the right to suspended your website without prior notice. Although we do our best to provide you with as much information as possible, it is up to you as the client to ensure that you take the necessary precautions to ensure that your website is secure at all time.

How can I make my CMS more secure?

Making your CMS more secure is not as complicated as you think, we have put together a list of recommended CMS plugins that will help improve your website security. Please click the link [here]. Another important tip to take note of is CMS back-end passwords, as a website owner you need to ensure that you use strong passwords are used at all times as this is one of the most common reasons for website exploits.

What Content Management Systems can Imaginet upgrade?

Should you want us to perform the upgrade for you and you have agreed to the costs provided here, we however only offer the upgrade option for the CMS`s listed below. Unfortunately due to the number of CMS`s out there we restricted ourselves to only performing upgrades for the CMS`s mentioned above.

• Joomla 1.5.x
• Joomla 2.5.x
• Wordpress
• Drupal
• Prestashop