The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and it’s only going to get worse.
It’s probably safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot: 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your website or blog provides little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites provide an opportunity to gain some advantage at your expense.
If hackers can find a security flaw that allows them to compromise the control of your site, the site can then be used to attack larger and more highly-valued web sites.
The truth is that hackers are very likely scouring for weaknesses and trying to hack into your blog as you are reading this. Whether they can get in successfully will depend on how hard you will make it for hackers to keep trying until they can either discover a way to get access, or give up and go look for a less protected target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Website Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan returns various results and details about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WP security scan results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can see all of this information about your WordPress website, hackers can too.
(Source: BlogDefender website)
Being able to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed on your site, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable security weaknesses, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Solution
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the creator of the BlogDefender security suit began looking for a way to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This site was fairly new and had practically nothing of value to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and observing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred inside his server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to lure unsuspecting visitors to the site and steal their financial information.
(Product image source: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience provides the valuable lesson that all websites have value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security holes in your website are …
And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …
Blog Defender – WordPress Plugins
Blog Defender includes 3 plugins:
The first plugin in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #1 lets you do automated site and file backups to your server, external servers and popular cloud-based storage solutions using a number of backup methods, schedule full or partial backups, exclude files or tables from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides a range of website security functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan your plugins, WordPress themes and WordPress core files to detect if any code in your files has been altered, and repair any problems it detects …
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin # 3 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).
Videos
In addition to the plugins, Blog Defender also includes 7 step-by-step training modules (video) and training guides that will show you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from malicious attacks …
(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product install just like any WP plugin. Simply upload them to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator login and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow do-it-yourself training product that takes you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which plugins you can use for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Secure your WordPress website from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Helps Avoid Intellectual Property Theft – If you sell an information product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free downloading sites.
- Avoid A Nightmare Situation – When a site has been hacked, expect to go through a serious amount of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. During this time, your, website or blog could get closed by your webhost, or even blocked in search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender provides many great features to WordPress users.
The product helps you fix all of the following areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- Monitor Files
- Link Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process to help protect your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky WordPress themes and WordPress plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Source: Blog Defender)
Testimonials From Plugin Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that customers have written about the Blog Defender security suite:
”Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re too small or not important enough to be hacked! I’ve found out that I’ve had bots in the backend of my sites, making alterations and changing things around, so there’s no telling what damage they’ve caused. I’ve had my main blog for over 3 years now, and the thought of losing all the hard work I’ve put into it is just devastating, not to mention costly! I have a shared hosting plan, so of course once they can get into one site, they can also access the others. Luckily, I now have the procedures detailed within Blog Defender in place so that I can prevent the majority of this ever happening again. Once you’ve secured one site it gets a lot quicker to secure all subsequent sites. With Blog Defender, you get easy-to-follow videos, along with a detailed checklist that you can downloadf. You are literally walked through the process of securing your blog against hackers, which has given me real peace of mind. This is a growing issue that all website owners are facing; so it isn’t going to go away. Prevention is better than cure, particularly as some of the nastier hacks around can literally ruin your business. So do yourself a favour – get your sites protected now, before it’s too late.” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
***
”Since working with blogs, I… like many others, have been concerned about how to handle the constant threat of blog attacks. After having a look at Blog Defender you can’t help but become most aware of the vulnerable areas all bloggers need to protect. Blog Defender is viable WordPress blog security prevention system that offers video instruction along with 3 software plugins that are free to download. The instruction shows the optimum settings on how to use the free plugins that will allow you top level force against blog hacker attacks.” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no websites using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012.
Matt Garrett also 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.”
The war on hackers 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 get their hands on. 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 most 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 risk-free, 30 day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Licensing Cost
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: Pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Use These Plugins
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WP core files, plugins and WP themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies such as the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what’s going on in your site and where the security holes are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your websites are hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your installation easier.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress
***
***