One of Joomla's great strengths is the massive extension library available to Joomla
Web sites.
There is always some extension out there that's available to you to add to
your Web site, and if you don't find what you want, you can always write your own extension.
However, as great is it is to install a ton of extensions on your Web site, you
are also creating for yourself additional maintenance
you need to be very diligent about completing.
And most notably, that is you need to make sure that your Joomla
extensions are updated, and are kept up to date, just the same way you're going to keep Joomla
up to date.
Hacking into a Joomla
Web site is unfortunately not all that uncommon, and in fact, all open source
content management systems have issues with hackers.
Hackers frequently get in through bad username and password combinations
that are easily guessed, like admin and admin, or they might get into your
Web site, because your content management system is out of date.
So you're running an old version of Joomla,
an old version of WordPress, an old version of Drupal. And the third way that
they can get in, and particularly in your Joomla
site, is that you let your extensions go out of date.
If you're not keeping your extensions up to date, you run the risk of the same
security issues cropping up that might crop up in Joomla over time.
You need to make very sure that your extensions are up to date.
Now, in the process of building a Joomla
Web site it's very common to go to the Joomla!
Extension Directory, download a ton of extensions, and try them out in your Joomla
site,
and I encourage that. Go download a whole bunch of stuff, try it all out, see
what you like, see what works for you, see what has a good user interface, and
makes life easier for your client.
But when you're done building your Web site, and you have finished installing all
of those extensions, get rid of the ones that are not in use. You need to
uninstall extensions that you're not going to use, number one.
Number two, the extensions that you're going to keep, you need to make
sure they're up to date. So Joomla
has a way of helping you out with this a little bit.
Here on the control panel, down here at the bottom, we have a note here
indicating that All extensions are up-to-date. I have no reason not to believe
that, because I just downloaded these things 10 minutes ago, and installed them on my Joomla
site.
I'm fairly sure they're up to date.
Even though Nicholas is famous for updating Akeeba Backup many, many times a
month, I'm relatively sure he hasn't rolled out a new version in last 10 minutes.
If I have an extension that goes out of date, the theory is that this will
indicate that there are extensions that I need to upgrade, and it will tell me
that I have some updates that are available.
And if I click this link, this will take me to a screen where those updates will be listed.
Now, notice I said in theory.
In theory, because this is relatively new functionality that's included in Joomla.
We have it in Joomla! 2.5,
and we have it here in Joomla! 3.0.
But in order for this to be effective, Joomla's third-party extension developers
must integrate their extensions with Joomla's framework here, so that those
extension updates, as they're available, will show up here in this updating
interface, and not all of the extension developers have done this yet.
So unfortunately, this icon here on the control panel about the extensions are
up-to-date may give you a very false sense of security over time.
What I would recommend is this; as new versions of Joomla
are released, what I would recommend you do is go visit all of the extension
developers for the Web site that you've built, and double-check to make sure that
they have not released new extensions as well.
Update all of your extensions at the same time you update your copy of Joomla.
It's a convenient way to remember. It's going to happen about once every four
to six weeks or so, which is at a good time frame to make sure that things are up to date.
Most of the developers also have a newsletter, or Twitter feed, or Facebook page,
or something that you can subscribe to that will also tell you when there are
updates available. At least, most of the reputable developers will do this.
So, just because it says All extensions are up-to-date doesn't necessarily mean its true.
Trust that little icon, but verify.
I would not hesitate when you update your copy of Joomla that you go and
check out to make sure that your extensions are up to date as well, and then
update them if required.