[Security] Starting a new Forum for co-workers: Some general questions about safety.

[palhanow]

Hey guys,

How are you doing? It's me, the brazilian guy who loves MyBB again.

Well, i'm starting a new Forum for my workplace, to put some dynamic in our communication for my coworkers.

E-mails are so old and linear, messy, and confuse that i need a new solution for my office. About all our communication is done be e-mails.

My office is a law office who have a lot of clients and we offer a lot of legal advice for some others. There are many requests by all our clients, general questions, that kind of stuff.

After some time, the e-mail system is in a point of total mess. Nobody can find a old e-mails, a old messages, a old request and specially: Our chiefs/management can't read the e-mails and how our employees are dealing with.

So... My solution: Why i don't start a forum?

The users must be logged in for see the forum (i can do that, right?), need register approbation from the admin, etc.

I can separate the clients with sub-forums, set some permissions for coworkers groups (like, they just can view and post in some areas, etc.), set some prefixes for any kind of threads, etc.

And the chiefs, they gonna be happy to see how micromanagement is doing, because now, they can see the job done closely.

Do you guys think that will work?

But my MAIN question is: HOW MUCH MYBB SYSTEM IS SAFE?

I don't want to see my Forum going to outerspace because the DB is gone for some unknown reason... And have to tell to my bosses that i don't know how to fix it because everything is missing.

I don't want to see bots/spiders entering in the Forum for getting information about our clients. I know i can set "registered only" to read the Forum, but just that option i can get away from search systems like Google?

Well, with this, i need very good advices for privacy.

Can i start this forum with that in mind? That MyBB is safe enough to work with then with legal matters from my office? Nobody is gonna see that we have a client convicted by murder after he chopped off the head of his own sister?

Any plugins you guys recommend for my demand?

MyBB works great with SSL certificate in the future? Is hard to install? I have a account in GoDaddy hosting services, and is pretty good to work there for a guy like me (amateur). It's a little expensive but i think is ok if the forum works.

Thanks guys.

[metulburr]

The users must be logged in for see the forum (i can do that, right?), need register approbation from the admin, etc.

I can separate the clients with sub-forums, set some permissions for coworkers groups (like, they just can view and post in some areas, etc.), set some prefixes for any kind of threads, etc.

Yes to all. You will need to tweak MyBB settings.

HOW MUCH MYBB SYSTEM IS SAFE?

Its as safe as the system admin makes it. You can screw up security if you change an apache setting when you dont know what you are doing, etc. Mybb is safe as any other forum software. There are tricks you can do to enhance security after you are done installing, and initial setup...
https://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration...rotection/

I don't want to see bots/spiders entering in the Forum for getting information about our clients. I know i can set "registered only" to read the Forum, but just that option i can get away from search systems like Google?

If you make it member only read access (guests like google bots cannot read the content).

I have a account in GoDaddy hosting services, and is pretty good to work there for a guy like me (amateur). It's a little expensive but i think is ok if the forum works.

I use digital ocean. You can do as little as $5 USD a month for a small forum and should be sufficient. You can always upgrade if you need more bandwidth. ITs as simple as click here to install this OS setup such as Ubuntu 16.06 LAMP (linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP) server. It install the basics for you and all you need to do is download mybb and follow the mybb install wizard. 

MyBB works great with SSL certificate in the future? Is hard to install?

there is a plugin that allows you to use SSL on your forum. You can get a free certificate from lets encrypt, but you have to recert every 3 months.
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/t...untu-14-04

Any plugins you guys recommend for my demand?

There are tons of plugins for mybb. You should be aware that a lot of plugins for mybb 1.6 still work for mybb 1.8. if you change the compatability line on the plugin. Just note that sometimes they may not work at all. I have like 20 plugins from 1.6 that are not updated to 1.8 that work perfect. However i have tried some that dont work at all, or work somewhat. There of course are a list of plugins for the latest 1.8.*...and they work out of the box (or should).

I would suggest to look through both 1.6 plugins as well with 1.8 plugins to see the complete list of plugins. Then there are plugins from MyBB Hacks. It can take you awhile just scanning through all the plugins. Make sure to use the 1.8 plugin before using its counterpart 1.6 plugin. Only use 1.6 if its not updated to 1.8. Also note that some of the 1.6 plugins have been added to the core of 1.8 making them moot. 




You are going to have to go out of your comfort zone to an extent of 1) setting up a server 2) installing mybb 3) installing mybb plugins....but you can just post and ask here if you get stuck.