Hi guys, I was wondering how MyBB forums like Hackforums manage to secure themselves?
If I go to:
http://hackforums.net/admin/index.php
The forums MyBB login isn't there? How do you change its directory and does it affect the forum by doing this?
Is cloudflare a good option?
Thank you.
There are so many aspects to look at when securing a website.
MyBB itself is pretty secure, when vulnerabilities are found, they're pretty much instantly patched. The best thing you can do is ensure that your server is secure that is hosting the MyBB forum. You should pick a decent hosting company, and if you don't know what you're doing on with Linux and managing web servers, go for shared hosting. Shared hosting isn't the most secure thing by design, but it'll be more secure than someone who has no prior experience with managing/administrating servers. Over time, I'd recommend you start to learn your way around Linux and web servers, and eventually move to a VPS, and then to a dedicated server.
Read the stickies in this forum (Security Management and Support), there are tutorials here which will guide you through things such as changing your ACP directory.
CloudFlare is fine but it isn't going to provide you much real security on its free plan, however it will save you tons of bandwidth on a large forum, and could potentially increase your website speed. They provide decent security services on their pro/business plans, though.
You should also refrain from installing tons of plugins, you should only install what you really need. When picking plugins, make sure the developer has a decent track record, and if you choose to download plugins from somewhere other than the MyBB mods site, ensure that you read up on the site you're buying from. There has been cases before where plugin developers on other sites develop plugins with back doors/exploits intentionally.
There's lots of tutorials for this kind of thing, but in the long run it's all about your experience and willingness to put forth the effort to secure your sites.
Rename admin directory to something like zzzweerr
Problem solved
So your directory is then: mysite.com/zzzweerr