Emergency Mode and Upload lockdown

Both switches live in MuRu Guard → Settings → Site Protection → Emergency. They are for the hours when something is wrong and you need to buy time. Both are available to everyone.

Emergency Mode

Extends your backend password (set under Hardening → Backend access) to the whole site, so visitors cannot reach anything while you clean up. It is tested with a real request before it counts as active and rolls back if the test fails.

Upload lockdown

For the days between a file-upload vulnerability being published and its patch being installed. It adds one managed rule to your .htaccess that refuses every request carrying multipart/form-data, which is how files are uploaded.

While it is on, all uploads stop: Media Manager, contact forms with attachments, page builders and installing extensions by upload. The warning is shown before you switch it on.

• Switch off automatically after: 1, 6, 24 or 72 hours, or never. The scheduled check turns it off when the time is up, and the dashboard shows an amber banner with the time while it is on.
• The administrator area is left out by default, because Joomla's own edit forms use the same format and blocking them would stop you saving an article. You can tick the box to block it too.
• Verified: Guard sends a test upload to your homepage and only keeps the lock if it is refused. If the homepage breaks or the test upload is not refused, the previous .htaccess is restored.
• Nginx does not read .htaccess. The page shows the equivalent rule to add to your server config instead.