Blog is the most popular website type on internet. Almost every web developer or enterprise operates one or more blogs for company events update or personal experience sharing purpose. Because of its simple structure and easy setup, most people start their first website via blog system. Till present, over half websites are buit on blog platforms and lots of people live by blogging. Blog sites are powering a huge business today so it's crucial to apply proper security rules to it. Here're few tips and suggestions our readers can follow to secure their blog sites.

Choose the right blog platform

Choosing the right platform is half success of your blog site. There're too many options to work with thus we can easily run into bad choice. A good blog software should be simple and user friendly with good support. We highly suggest wordpress which is used by most blog professionals. The wordpress core platform is very small and easy to work with and users can fully customize it by themes/plugins with actual needs. No matter if you're web developer or novice, wordpress won't disappoint you for great and successful blog creation.

At the meanwhile, it doesn't mean you have to choose by yourself. It completely depends your needs in order to choose the perfect platform. For example if you just want to write blog posts and communicate with other bloggers, there're lots of free and great platforms to register like blogspot.com and wordpress.com etc.. You don't have to maintain the site by yourself and everything is pre-configured to use. So it's crucial to evaluate your requirements.

Configure proper user rights

Many blog sites are managed by multiple users especially for those article submission sites. It may involve administrator, moderator, writers and more roles. You should pay attention to user rights carefully and make sure they got proper permissions to complete their tasks but do not make dangerous changes to the site.

Keep updated with software vendor

Software vendors always provides various updates and fixes from official announcement. It's highly recommended to sign up their newsletter and get latest update. We can also get involved to their community forums and discuss our concerns/problems. In this way, we can always keep our blog system via newest updates and security tactics from professional suggestions.

Backup important data

Most blog system data is stored in database. No matter if we operate a small or big blog site, we should set up a backup cron on server so we can always retrieve data in case something goes wrong. Especially when we host with a less support server service, professional user end management is pretty important to ensure everything is under control.

Use the right blog hosting service

Using right web hosting service is always the most important part when we plan to promote a successful blog site. A decent blog hosting deeply optimized their servers to work with the script and provides 24*7 live support to meet our urgent contact needs. Either from server setup and network layouts, they have fully optimized on each side to deal with all kinds of website service. For support, they have a good team of professionals in various scripts. Based their resourceful manpower and ideas, they provide helpful FAQ & tutorials in using/securing our sites in multiple methods.

For fast and secure blog hosting service, we highly recommend arvixe and webhostinghub who can provide affordable and powerful hosting plans. Especially for arvixe hosting, they have both linux and windows server plans to choose with great server features.

Secure your blog site should be simple if you go in right way. We highly suggest follow above tips with needful configuration on your blog.

DNN is the most powerful asp.net CMS software that's loved by millions of users and communities. The DNN local communities exist in most countries with different languages support. There're many people living by dnn development on modules and skins. It's also very good learning platform for .net programmers. Because of it's leadership in asp.net, it's crucial to understand some security tactics in using this software. We have been worked with DNN since 3.2 and supported lots of dnn clients on live hosting service. Following DNN security tips are generated from our daily experience and professional suggestions in DNN community.

Secure installation

Security is started before your initial dnn installation. As suggested by this article, DNN keeps user password via encrypted format and we can improve it using hash. But we must edit configuration file before installation. Also, unless you have a blade fast hosting server, we highly suggest install locally first then move to hosting space. From our experience, dnn installation wizard can fail easily. In case you get unsuccessful installation, the wizard can be restarted when people browse to your domain.

Admin/Host credentials

By default, DNN provides two user accounts admin/host. Actually we can change the two user id to anything else and apply enhanced password policies. DNN can be auto installed by various installers nowadays but we highly recommend to install manually so you can understand the entire process and secure the installation as much as possible.

Use Captcha

Captcha is great feature to reduce spam registration and submission on your DNN site. Captcha is a built in feature and it can be enabled via admin user login. In case you run into problems to enable this feature, this article should help fix it. There're also multiple official articles on how to customize the captcha image, just make a bit research and you'll be surprised how fantastic it is.

Set proper file permission

DNN is programmed on asp.net platform that highly rely on "networkservice" this user account to work with. We must grant "RWXD" permissions to this user to ensure everything can work fine. However, we should restrict other user accounts permission correctly or else it will bring big security issue. We highly recommend to follow this official tutorial to configure the right file permissions.

Do not use sql express

SQL express is the free edition of sql server service. We don't recommend use it for your live website. Not just for performance but also refers to daily maintenance. Since both website files and database are located on the same server, any misconfiguration might bring big security issues. For enterprise website purpose, full version sql server is a must because it's configured on dedicated sql server environment. As we know, the less service on server, the more secure it is.

Use reliable module/skin resource

Because lots of developers live by module/skin development, there're many dnn resources we can get. However, we must find a reliable provider because each developer has different programming skills. The script design decides its overall secure level directly so we must pay good attention to it. DNN now provides official store for commercial skins/modules. All of their products are verified by DNN official team for guaranteed performance and security. If you need commercial solutions, their official store should be primary consideration.

Check DNN Logs

You don't have to login hosting server for website logs. DNN has built in log system to record all server end and onsite activities. You can view how your website be accessed and which user logged in at what time. Check those logs often and find if there's anything inormal so you can apply necessary changes in time.

Use a reliable DNN hosting

Probably the most important part. Hosting server is the destination of all your datas so it's quite important to get a right provider in the beginning. No matter how much time it may take, we don't need to quarrel with customer support at a bad hosting service. The best dnn hosting service must be setup on latest windows server system and up to date hardware production. Network must be safe and clean with good protection over common attacks.

If you have extremely high requirements to performance and security, powerdnn might be the right place because their team members are actually dnn developers and work for DNN official! if you need budget choice, you might check out winhost who's dedicated in windows hosting service.

Drupal is recognized one of the most scalable and secure web development platform. There're milliions of global users and developers rely on it for various website purpose. The drupal core is already a well developped and safe system. Security issues are mainly from user end during operation process. Based user experience and professional suggestions, we carry out the following 6 tips in securing a drupal website.

Keep updated and backup regularly

The simple but crucial requirement. The drupal project is pretty active and provides frequent updates. Just follow this official guidance to update your drupal core to latest release. Since all drupal site date is stored in mysql database, so pay extreme attention to it.

Backup is also a MUST. As drupal official suggested, we should generate a backup before any update/upgrade in case anything goes wrong. Especially when you operate a business site that includes a lot of sensitive data, you should back up more frequently, probably schedule a daily solution.

Use a safe theme

Drupal is safe, but not all drupal themes are! There're tons of official and non-official drupal themes for different website requirements. We must use a trustable theme resource. A high quality drupal theme is not just able to beautify the website layouts but also come with professional and safe code design. Everything is tested and optimized before final release to make sure end users can use it safely. Those cracked or less trustable themes should be avoided for any reason.

Proper file permission

This refers to hosting account configuration in control panel. Make sure to set the correct file permission by following this official guidance. You can also configure to following recommended settings directly

/default on 755
/default/files including all subfolders and files on 755
/default/themes including all subfolders and files on 755
/default/modules including all subfolders and files on 755
/default/settings.php and /default/default.settings.php on 644

Incorrect permission settings will bring bit potential issues because hackers are very diligent in finding our website bugs.

Strong password

Strong password is always suggested for all drupal sites. Not just for website password but for its backend mysql database and ftp password too. We should also pay attention to different website user accounts and make sure they get correct rights.

Sign up a protection service

Regulary scanning of our drupal sites can greatly reduce hacking opportunites. A trustable third party service can simplify the process by automatic schedules. From lots of drupal professionals experience, mollom is highly suggested by them. Especially for drupal sites that come with frequent interaction between the readers and authors, the mollom solution provides side by side protection such as the following

• Blocks spammy comments on any node, articles, pages, forum topics etc.
• Blocks contact form Spam.
• Protects the original user registration/subscription from fake user accounts.
• Protects user’s password request form

Use a reputable drupal hosting

A safe and drupal compatible hosting service is a must to power a successful site. Unlike many other open source cms softwares, drupal works a little different and requires extra server support to get everything working properly. Leading drupal hosting plans always provide newest server and customer support. They have great FAQ and video tutorials in using the software professionally