When you have a web site online then there are several things that you need to do so that you can make sure that it is always operational. If it is not always operational then you need to make sure your downtime is cut to a minimum. The first thing that you should do is to make sure that all of the software that you are using on the web site is up to date. When a company releases a minor update to a piece of software, then most of the time it is for security reasons. If you want to avoid your site being taken down by hackers then you need to make sure that you apply all of the updates. But before you do that you should make sure that you back up your web site safely and securely. Also, backing up your web site is another way that you can make sure that your downtime stays low. 

If you are someone who knows their way around tech then you probably already know how to back up your web site. But if you are someone who is new or may not know everything that there is to know about server software then you might be a little lost. You will probably use the CPanel board to collect a back up of your web site. That is fine but it is not the best way to be able to examine your file structure. By examining your file structure you are able to guarantee that you are getting everything that you need and leaving the bad things out. If a hacker was able to put a piece of malware on your server, then you would not be able to see it through the normal CPanel back up process. So you should use an FTP client to back up your data with.

In case you do not know, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is an old school technology that will allow you to go into the file structure of a server and download or upload data from there. With an FTP client, you will be able to easily see the entire file structure and notice if anything is there that is not supposed to be. Once you see this, you can delete the malware from your server and then commence to downloading the backup data. So if you ever need that back up data in the future, it will be right there.

If your server allows it and you are worried about someone packet sniffing your credentials out of the air, then you can use SFTP. This is the same as FTP but it comes with a SSH component to it. This will allow you to pass data over the air securely without hassles.

As you see, backing up your data is very important. And if you need to do it, then there are ways that you can do it securely so that you and only you will be able to get the data.