The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and the situation is only going to get worse.
You can safely 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 162,000 WordPress sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website has no significant value to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.
If someone can find a way to gain remote access and control of your site, your website can then be employed to attack larger and more valuable websites.
The reality is that malicious bots are most likely trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can break into your site successfully depends on how difficult you can make things for them to keep trying until they can either find a way to break in, or give up and decide to look for a less protected target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …
(WordPress Security Check Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the test will yield a number of results and information about your site …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can see all of this information, then hackers can too.
(Image source: Blog Defender)
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 can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their sites.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress Sites
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the creator of BlogDefender began looking for a way to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by its hosting company. This particular blog had literally no value to offer, yet it still was hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and observing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred within his server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to drive unsuspecting victims to the site and steal their financial information.
(Source: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience is evidence that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security holes …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite comes with 3 plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and cloud storage solutions using different backup methods (e.g. Email), perform complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Plugin #2 provides WordPress security …
(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
The “WordPress Security” plugin provides a range of essential site security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” scans your WP plugins, themes, core files and content to detect if any of your files have been tampered with, and repair problems …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without providing any reciprocal value in return).
Blog Defender – Tutorials Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 video training modules plus PDF/DOC guides that will teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product suite install like any WordPress plugin. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP admin area and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a practical training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get things done inexpensively.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you sell digital products (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Your Web Host And Deindexed By Search Engines – When a site gets hacked, you can expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. During this time, your, account could be suspended by your host, or even blocked in search engines. And if this is not painful enough, 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.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to WordPress users.
The product addresses the following security areas:
- Webhost 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 Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Monitoring Links
- Block Known Offenders
- Automate Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps for securing your website, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky WordPress themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about the Blog Defender plugin:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”I discovered some incredible security tricks!” David Walker – www.inboxrockstar.com
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012, no Blog Defender-protected websites or blogs have been hacked.
The product developer 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 currently harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, is quite inexpensive and it’s as good if not better than many premium 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, 30 day, full 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.
Please Note: Pricing details of the Blog Defender plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Use These Plugins
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, plugins and themes, 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 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 website 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.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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