What Does MAtt Cutts MEan?

I was watching this video by Matt Cutts about 2010 Predictions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEeo2L1PHsU&feature=channel

At 2:28 of the video he is talking about hacking....

he says the best thing you can do is "keep your server patched"

what does this mean?

 

i think he mean updated

 

now hacking is one of black seo strategies... interesting.. first time.. I can think of the days when .edu .gov sites got hacked and links planted pointing to finance/pill sites...

 

Yep, I'm pretty sure Matt was talking about keeping the software used on your server updated, to stop your server being hacked.

 

pretty much like you should update your windows using live update...you need to update your server with the suitable patches/updates. This prevents any newly discovered viruses heading your way

 

The host should keep the server updated, patched, or whatever they want to call it. If you have vps, dedicated, or similar root access most will be your job. If you have a cheap shared hosting package, then that is your hosts job. Some do a better job than others.

If you have some kind of php database driven script for your web site, then it will be up to you to make sure you keep up to date with current versions of the script, updating/upgrading/patching. Many scripts release updates and patches regularly. Sometimes just new features, other times to patch some security holes.

 

I am sure that means it has to be updated time to time..

 

He meant to always use latest version of software. Which includes OS, Control Panel (WHM/cPanel), Scripts etc.

 

Nothing but it simply means updation.

 

Well i have hostgator so is this something I should NOT worry about?

 

it means that you have to install fresh patches\updates.
For windows servers - use windows update
for linux servers use: yum update from your shell

 

He says always upto date

 

Here's the thing, many people use cms's like wordpress for blogs, or Joomla and Drupal for real sites, sometimes these have vulnerabilities in them that people figure out and exploit. Once they get the administrator username and password or find a back door somewhere they can do whatever they want to your site. Obviously many people use this as an opportunity to stick links to their own sites on the sites they hack to improve their own search rank. One common tactic these people use is script and sql injection attacks to embed a bunch of links into a site, I had it happen to one of my sites last year and it was a mother f'r to get rid of.