Virus :-

[AHB900]

Hey everyone, I was just talking to my host and i was told i have a virus and i need to reinstall my store. I just did a back up through the admin directory/tools/backup and i saved the SQL file on my computer is this all i need to do in order to be able to load up my store back? Like the products and settings. I dont need the files and templates or anything considering one of them has a virus. Please a really quick answer would be helpful. I dont want to loose all my products that took me forever to put in. Also how can i avoid this Virus stuff? I didnt even install anything outside of what was in my control panel and the oscommerce website so i dont see where it would have came from.

Please i would really appreciate all the help i can get.

Thanks

[michael_s]

I would also make a backup of the database via your hosting control panel or a mysql dump from phpmyadmin. Multiple backups are a good idea anyway.

If you are running an older version of osCommerce, it has several security vulnerabilites that would allow the site to be hacked fairly easily. That is most likely how it occured.

How can you avoid it? Well, first you need see if you can find out how you were exploited. Next, keep your osC site updated with all security patches and make sure permissions are tight. Then, if you have your own dedicated server, you need to keep up with all the security patches for all the software on your server. Run a firewall. Use strong passwords. Run suPHP instead of mod_php. The list is pretty much endless.