The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and it’s 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 over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Could yours be next?
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
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)
As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a vulnerability provides an opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable website not only presents hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and win “respect” among their peers, but it can also be a valuable resource for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and defrauding users through information theft.
If a hacker can discover a weakness in the web software, your website or blog can then be used to target other valuable web sites.
The truth is that hackers are most likely searching for weaknesses and trying to hack into your website right now. Whether they can get into your site or not, depends on how hard you can make things for hackers to keep trying until they either find a way to get in, or are forced to decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information About Your WordPress Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Website Security Check Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the test returns a number of results and information about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WP security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using this tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information, so can hackers.
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
The ability to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and protect against malicious attacks.
Blog Defender Security Solution
Product Description
The product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the developer of the BlogDefender security suit developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular site had literally no value to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being informed by his host and noticing that a significant amount of unusual activity had occurred inside the server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Product image source: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience should be enough to illustrate the fact that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security weaknesses in your WordPress site are …
And let’s you fix these quickly …
Blog Defender – WordPress Plugins
Blog Defender comes with 3 plugins:
The first plugin in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
The plugin lets you do secure site, file and data backups to your server, third-party servers and leading cloud backup solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), automate full or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do bulk text string replacements in databases, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides WordPress security …
(Source: BlogDefender website)
This plugin provides a range of website protection functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan your content and files to detect whether anything has been found, and repair problems …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious scripts 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 – Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 step-by-step training modules (video) and downloadable documentation that teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers …
(Product image: BlogDefender website)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
The plugins are quite easy to install. Simply upload them to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user account and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that guides you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free plugins you should install to get things done.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Secure your website from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you are an information product author (e.g. downloadable e-books, videos, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on free download sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a website is hacked, expect to go through a great deal of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, account can get suspended by your webhost, or even blocked by search engines. Additionally, your personal contacts could end up being spammed, your customer list and financial details could be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender was created to keeps your site and your business safe and secure 24/7.
The product helps you fix the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WP Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Link Monitoring
- Block Known Offenders
- Automate Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process for securing your site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky WordPress themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials customers have written about Blog Defender:
”Great way to secure your blog!” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
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”In the past month alone, I’ve had 3 niche blogs hacked, costing me hundreds of dollars in lost sales – all of which could have been avoided if I followed the steps in this training. I can tell you, there’s nothing worse than spending months building up a blog, adding posts every few days, and then finding it all gone in an instant. The great thing about these ‘over the shoulder’ videos is that you get to see exactly how to do everything, so it doesn’t matter if you’re technically challenged. Just copy what you see on the screen, and then relax knowing your blogs are safe. (Just one of the tips in the first video alone could probably have prevented my blogs getting hacked) I even noticed one or two tips in there that help with SEO too … so following these videos could even bring your blogs more traffic!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, no sites using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s first release.
Matt Garrett also states on his site …
“With the volume of attacks nowadays … we probably won’t hold forever, so we’ve been busy creating even tougher WordPress security.”
Cybersecurity is an escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can get their hands on. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need 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.
Blog Defender 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, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
Blog Defender is normally available for personal use only on unlimited sites. When we last checked, however, it was also being sold with Developer rights, allowing users to secure client sites as well.. Cost = $47.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct when this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, plugins and WP themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.
Adopting a security procedure such as the one Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your security responsibilities as a website owner are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your sites are hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid major WordPress security holes without costly solutions.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress
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