Performed a full security audit and cleanup of multiple compromised Joomla websites. The work included identifying malicious PHP files, backdoors, infected .htaccess rules, and database/template defacement injections. The main websites were cleaned, suspicious files were moved to quarantine, databases were scanned for malicious content, Joomla admin access was restored, and Super User accounts were reviewed.
Inactive subdomains were isolated to prevent reinfection of the cleaned websites. After cleanup, public pages were verified, design issues were fixed, including menu visibility, logo display, redirects, and broken layout elements. Several Joomla extensions were updated, and recommendations were prepared for completing the Joomla core upgrade after migrating the hosting environment to MySQL 8+.
Stack: Joomla, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, FTP/SFTP, Apache .htaccess, HTML/CSS, Joomla Admin, Freehost hosting panel, malware cleanup, database audit, backup and restore workflow.
Inactive subdomains were isolated to prevent reinfection of the cleaned websites. After cleanup, public pages were verified, design issues were fixed, including menu visibility, logo display, redirects, and broken layout elements. Several Joomla extensions were updated, and recommendations were prepared for completing the Joomla core upgrade after migrating the hosting environment to MySQL 8+.
Stack: Joomla, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, FTP/SFTP, Apache .htaccess, HTML/CSS, Joomla Admin, Freehost hosting panel, malware cleanup, database audit, backup and restore workflow.