Moving your classes and resources online with a Learning Management System such as Moodle opens up a whole world of possibilities for teaching your students. However, it also opens up a number of threats as your students, private information, and resources become vulnerable to cyber attacks. Learn how to safeguard Moodle to keep the bad guys at bay.
Moodle Security will show you how to make sure that only authorized users can access the information on your Moodle site. This may seem simple, but, every day, systems get hacked and information gets lost or misused. Imagine the consequences if that were to happen in your school. The straightforward examples in this book will help you to lock down those access routes one door at a time.
By learning about the different types of potential threat, reading this book will prepare you for the worst. Web robots can harvest your e-mail addresses to send spam e-mails from your account, which could have devastating effects. Moodle comes with a number of set roles and permissions – make sure these are assigned to the right people, and are set to keep out the spam bots, using Moodle's authentication features. Learn how to secure both Windows and Linux servers and to make sure that none of your system files are accessible to the wrong people. Many of the most dangerous web attacks come from inside your system, so once you have all of your security settings in place, you will learn to monitor user activity to make sure that there are no threats from registered users. You will learn to work with the tools that help you to do this and enable you to back up your settings so that even a crashed system can't bother you.
Protect your students and staff by securing Moodle to prevent online attacks and hacks
What you will learn from this book :
- Use CAPTCHA to make sure that humans are creating new accounts on Moodle – not Spambots
- Configure PHP and Apache servers to protect your Windows and Linux systems from malicious threats
- Assign the most appropriate permissions to different files to ensure the right level of protection
- Create custom roles to control who accesses what
- Protect your site from external attacks with secure HTTP
- Organize regular anti-virus scans to ensure no new risks have been introduced to the system
- Monitor the security of Moodle easily with notifications and security reports
- Minimize the downtime of Moodle in the case of actual damage
Approach
Moodle Security is packed with practical examples, which guide you through optimizing the protection of your Moodle site. Each chapter covers a different security threat and how to secure your site against it. You will also find recommendations for what is best for your particular system and usage.
Who this book is written for
If you are in charge of Moodle – whether you are an administrator or lead teacher – then securing it is one of the most important things that you can do. You need to know the basics of working with Moodle, but no previous experience of system administration is required.