One of the most common problems that we observe among many of our clients is the persistent threat of cross contamination – that is, malware that spreads from one website to another when they are hosted in the same environment. This is particularly common within cPanel environments when add-on domains are used, or within improperly configured Virtual Private Servers (VPS). While we have been warning clients about the risks posed by cross contamination for many years, we haven’t yet produced any content instructing website owners on exactly how to avoid it. Fortunately, today that changes with the release of our new secure VPS configuration guide!
What is cross-contamination?
When website owners first configure their hosting environment security is not always the first thing on their minds. They’re excited to get their brand new websites up and running, why would they be thinking about hackers? In fact, most often security doesn’t even cross a website owners’ minds until after they get hacked and their website is belching out malware and blocked by Google.
Oftentimes website owners opt for the most easy, cheap, and convenient route to get their websites configured, after all why wouldn’t they? However, when multiple websites are all crammed into the same cPanel instance or all just thrown into the default directory of their hosting server (owned by the same user, no less) this can create a perfect environment for malware to spread between websites.
What can end up happening is that a single compromised administrator user on a WordPress site can bring down your entire fleet of websites and cause a major headache (and cost a lot o ..
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