The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are only going to get worse.
It’s probably safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 reported that over 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Source: Blog Defender)
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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website with a security vulnerability provides some value opportunity to hackers. Every website is valuable to hackers. Business sites, personal blogs, government sites … even web sites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If a hacker can find a security flaw and gain complete control of your website, the website or blog can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against larger and more valuable websites.
The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are very likely trying to break into your site while you are reading this article. Whether they can do this successfully depends on how difficult or easy you will make things for them to keep persisting until they can find a way to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for a less secure target.
How Much Information About Your WordPress Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(WP Security Check Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test returns various results and details about your website setup …
(WordPress security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can access all of this information, then so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender site)
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 are all potentially valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about potentially exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, 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 blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This site had practically nothing to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place within his server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into the site.
(Source: BlogDefender website)
This simple example provides the valuable lesson that all websites have value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security holes in your website are …
And let’s you quickly and easily fix these …
Plugins
Blog Defender includes three plugins for WordPress:
The first plugin in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin lets you do automated site and file backups to your server, third-party servers and cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, schedule complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your WP website with security …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
This plugin provides a range of website security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” allows you to scan your plugins, WP themes, core files and content to see if any of your files have been changed, and fix any problems it uncovers …
(Product image source: 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 others benefit from your hard work without offering anything of benefit in return).
Blog Defender – Tutorials Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender security product suite also includes seven videos and training guides that will teach you exactly how to protect your site from malicious attacks …
(Source: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Easy Installation
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product are quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that will walk you through the website security process and show you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get things done without incurring additional or unnecessary expenses.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Protect your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Protect Your Info Products From Theft – If you are an info product author (e.g. downloadable e-books, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a website gets hacked, expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website can be suspended by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal or financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Features
Blog Defender offers many features to WP users.
Blog Defender helps you fix the following areas:
- Host Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- 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
- File Monitoring
- Track Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process to help protect your website, addressing hosting security, using tools to identify risky themes and WordPress plugins, and then implementing site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials that plugin users have submitted for Blog Defender:
”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
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, no websites or blogs protected with the solution were hacked since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012.
Matt Garrett, the product developer 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.”
The war on hackers is an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can currently access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates 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 risk-free, thirty day, 100% 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.. Price = $47.00.
Note: Current pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install The Plugins
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WP plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting security procedures like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what’s going on in your site and where the security holes are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if the security on your site is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender
***
***