The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and the situation is getting worse.
It’s safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s inevitable that at some point in time someone will attempt to hack into your site.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked every year! Could yours be next?
(Image source: BlogDefender site)
According to the Cnet report,
“With some old-fashioned trickery, hackers were able to get more than 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered Web sites to mount a distributed-denial-of-service attack against another Web site.”
(Source: cnet.com/news/ddos-attack-is-launched-from-162000-wordpress-sites)
According to leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website or blog with a vulnerability can be seen as an opportunity to hackers. An unsecured site not only provides hackers opportunities to improve their skills and win “respect” amongst their peers, but it can also acts as a valuable resource for launching stealth attacks, distributing malware and as a source for creating information theft.
If a malicious user can find a vulnerability, your site can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against larger and more highly-valued sites.
The harsh reality is that hackers are trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can do this successfully depends on how hard you can make things for hackers or bots to keep trying until they either can work out how to break in, or are forced to decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(WP Security Scan Product image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test returns various results and details about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WP security scan results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can access all of this information, hackers can too.
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
The ability to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories can be useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about any vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and make your site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Solution
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the creator of BlogDefender developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by its hosting company. This site had practically no value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and observing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside his site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
This simple example demonstrates that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress installation for potential security holes …
And let’s you quickly fix these …
Plugins
The product suite includes three plugins for WordPress:
The first plugin in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
The plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating websites to new domains or server locations), search and replace text in your database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Plugin #2 “WordPress Security” provides your website or blog with security …
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #2 provides a range of vital site security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Plugin #3 allows you to scan your web site to detect whether any of your files have been altered, and repair the problem …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been added to your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your content without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Training Videos
In addition to the plugins, Blog Defender also includes seven training modules in video format plus downloadable guides that teach you exactly how to protect your website from hackers …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Easy, Quick & Simple To Install
The plugins included with Blog Defender are very easy to install. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that takes you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free WordPress plugins to install to get things done inexpensively.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protects Intellectual Property From Being Stolen – If you sell information products (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Banned By Your Host – When a site is hacked, you should expect to go through a serious amount of frustration and aggravation. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, website or blog can get suspended by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender make your your web site invisible to hackers and malicious botnets.
The product covers the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WordPress Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WordPress Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Monitor Links
- Block Known Offenders
- Automate Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical process for securing your website, addressing hosting security, using tools to quickly identify risky themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Product image source: BlogDefender site)
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
***
“Sure wish I’d had this before I lost over a dozen blogs just recently!” Kathe Lucas – www.wackycentral.com
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured sites were hacked.
Matt states on his site, however …
“With the volume of attacks nowadays … we probably won’t hold forever, so we’ve been busy creating even tougher WordPress security.”
Cybersecurity is is a perpetual game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the information and technologies that developers can currently access. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, is quite inexpensive and it’s as good if not better than many web security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Plugin Support
The product is well-supported, can be used by both Mac and PC users, is compatible with the latest WordPress release and is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
Blog Defender is normally available with a personal license only for use on unlimited sites. When we last checked, however, it was also being sold with Developer rights, allowing users to secure client sites as well.. Price = $47.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Blog Defender plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
In Conclusion
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WP plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand what your security responsibilities are as the site owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your website is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your WordPress website easier.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Sites
***
***