Security RedHat 9

Since some years I have a Red Hat 9 webserver. I use it to host my
students webpages for PHP and MySQL lessons. I am not a Linux expert
at all, I just want to have a stable server running for these
purposes. This has been working just well these years until now.
Someone has installed a program, john-1.7.2 and use the server
probably to hack other systems. Now my rootpasswd is changed so I
can't use it anymore. I have a copy of the server on a harddirve
whilch I intend to change for the destroyed one. The server is placed
some 60 miles from here so I use it through ssh and only rarley I can
handle it physicly.
So my question: What shall I do to make the new server safer before I
pöut on the net? I use to have only one user to be able to log in with
ssh. All passwords are safe Unix passwords.
Are there som simple actions I can do to make the server more secure
before using it?

Gerry
.

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