By Magnetic Clouds Engineering
A new server starts receiving attacks within minutes of going online. This checklist gets you to a secure baseline quickly.
- Lock down SSH — use keys instead of passwords, disable root login and consider limiting access to known IP addresses.
- Enable the firewall — Plesk's firewall extension makes it simple to allow only the ports you need: SSH, web, the Plesk panel and mail.
- Turn on Fail2ban and ModSecurity — jails for SSH, Plesk and mail, plus the OWASP Core Rule Set, first in detection mode and then blocking.
- Keep everything patched — automatic security updates for the operating system and Plesk components.
- Back up off-site — encrypted, scheduled backups to remote storage, and a restore you have actually tested.
- Monitor — uptime checks, disk-space alerts and log monitoring catch problems before your customers do.
Our Security & Hardening team does all of this for you, and Managed Security keeps watching it 24/7.
