I asked their permission for posting this. I will refrain from posting the URL and company name however.
At the time of writing I’ve been asked to redesign their site, starting from scratch. We previously desinged a Joomla based web site with e-commerce capabilities. Simple enough, unfortunately I should have stressed a couple of key security practices. Joomla’s security seems good, the problem was the cPanel. We’re all aware of joomla’s admin security “session expired” feature which, to some of us, can get quite annoying, but technically important for our clients.
My client happened to be in the library in Reggio Emilia, an affluent town of Northern Italy. After checking their e-mail, as the story goes, the client got up and completley forgot to log out. As it so happens a stranger comes along and sees the pretty cPanel icons and decides to fool around a bit. Hoping to find something of interest. As the stranger clicks along, he decides to erase some of this strange tecnical mumbo jumbo. Then gets up and walks away. (Dramatization by the author and not the client)
The next day the client finds a strange DB error on his site and immediately sends SEOM an e-mail describing the problem. As it so happens we explained the potential causes of an error, and began to investigate, and found that the DB was missing.
Long story short, we talked it over and came to an agreement for a recreation of their site, eventhough the site design was still in tact, the DB was gone after the site being live for a month. Lucky for us we get to design another site, and the client will now be the proud owner of two Joomla designs just in case they want to create another site. Why another design? *shurgs* Did they get a generous discount? *wink*
So what’s the moral of the story. Stress cPanel security to your clients. Wether it be via e-Mail newsletter or an introductory session before handling them their hosting account. Something I would definatly love to see is a cPanel security feature similar to that of Joomla, and from a developer’s perspective a simple on an off switch as well.
