Last week the Joomla Security Strike Team issued another high severity alert for Joomla version 1.5. This is hot on the heels of a moderate alert in April. All 1.5.x installs prior to and including 1.5.17 are affected.

Updating Joomla is not especially difficult but streamlining the process is worthwile if you look after more than just a few sites! Hosting tools such as cPanel and Installatron can help automate this process for you but it can take a few weeks for the updates to be made available via these tools.

The best way to do updates is to use the excellent (and free) Update Manager from Sam Moffatt you can find this extension on the Joomla Extensions web site: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/installers/9332

Before doing any changes, make sure you have a recent backup of your website!

Install Update Manager (you only have to do this once):

• Go to: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/installers/9332
• Click on the "Download" button and download the com_jupdateman_151.tgz file to your local machine
• Log in to the back-end of your Joomla site www.yourdomain.com.au/administrator and click on Extensions -> Install/Uninstall
• Browse to the com_jupdateman_151.tgz file on your local machine and click on "Upload File and Install"

Update Joomla to latest version:

• Go to Components -> Update Manager
• Click on "download the update file >>>"
• Click on "Patch Package"
• Once downloaded, Click on "you can proceed with the install >>>"
• If all is well, you will see the message, "You have successfully upgraded your Joomla! install! Congratulations!" and your update is complete

Depending on how big the latest patch is (and how far behind you are), updates can now be done in a few minutes or even a few seconds.

How do you keep your Joomla sites up to date?