Has your Joomla website been hacked? If not, you’re lucky. A client called me last week because her Joomla site had been hacked. There were several weak security issues that might have allowed the hackers to get in, and there are a few simple things she could have done t0 prevent it.If your Joomla site hasn’t been hacked, you’re lucky. There are several simple things you can do to prevent it:

• Use complex passwords for your ftp, control panel login,  and Joomla login, and change them often. My client was using a very simple password for her cPanel and ftp login, and she hadn’t changed it since she started the account over a year ago.
• BEFORE you site is hacked, backup the whole site. If your site is hacked and you don’t have a backup of all your files and database created BEFORE the site was hacked, you could lose your whole site and have to completely rebuild it.Backup all of your files and the Joomla database (and any other databases you have). The standard cPanel has a site backup tool that backs up all of your files and databases, but if you don’t have this feature, you can download all of your site files using ftp. And you can backup your database using PHPMyAdmin. If you don’t know how to do this, contact your host.
• Delete all extra Joomla Components, Plugins, or Modules if you are not using them. I am talking about added extensions, not Joomla core extensions; for example, if you installed Virtuemart but are not using it, uninstall it.
• Update to the latest version of Joomla. Joomla! releases security updates about once a month. Make sure you update. If you are using Joomla 1.0.xx, upgrade to the latest version: currently 1.5.13.
• Read the Joomla Security Checklists: http://docs.joomla.org/Category:Security_Checklist