The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and it’s 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 over 162,000 WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Image: 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 flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site has 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 a malicious user can hack and gain control of your website or blog, that website can then be employed to target more valued websites.
The truth is that hackers are scouring for exploits and trying to hack into your blog right now. Whether they will break in successfully depends on how hard you will make things for hackers or botnets to keep trying until they either discover how to get in, or are forced to give up and go look for a less protected target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Product image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan returns a number of results and details about your website …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your site, hackers can too.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender site)
The ability 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 be valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their sites.
Fortunately, there is a simple way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to malicious attackers and bots.
Blog Defender
Product Description
The product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the developer of the BlogDefender security suit developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended by the hosting company. This blog had practically no value to offer, yet it was still attacked.
Matt only became aware of the event after being suspended by his host and seeing that a significant amount of unusual activity had occurred within the site, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files designed to drive visitors to the site and steal their financial details.
(Product image: BlogDefender website)
This simple example illustrates the fact that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you website for potential security holes …
And let’s you quickly fix these …
WP Plugins
The Blog Defender security product comes with 3 WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud-based backup solutions using different backup methods, automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do bulk text string replacements in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
The plugin provides a range of vital website security functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
The third plugin lets you scan your plugins, WP themes and core files to see whether anything unusual in your files has been modified, and repair problems …
(Source: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious content have been added to your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your hard work without providing anything of benefit in return).
Video Training
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender product suite also includes 7 step-by-step training modules (video) plus written guides that teach you exactly what to do to protect your site from hackers …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
The plugins are quite easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator account and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a DIY training product that will guide you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get the job done.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Secure your website from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Helps Avoid Intellectual Property Theft – If you are an info product author (e.g. downloadable e-books, videos, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Suspended By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a website has been hacked, you can 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. During this time, your, account could get suspended by your host, or even blocked in search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business details and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender offers many features to website owners.
The product addresses the following areas:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WordPress 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
- File Monitoring
- Monitoring Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps to help protect your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky WordPress themes and WP plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Source: BlogDefender website)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments plugin users have written about Blog Defender:
“You are literally walked through the process!” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
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”I sure wish I’d had this before I lost over a dozen blogs just recently. Okay, it was my fault for not securing things more, BUT… I didn’t have a handy, current reference like this to turn to for quick help either.;)” Kathe Lucas – www.wackycentral.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured websites were hacked.
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 is a never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and technologies that developers presently can harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier 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.
Blog Defender 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, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Pricing
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.
Please Note: Price details for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Get This Product
Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, 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 like the one 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 investing in expensive solutions.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Blog Defender Security Plugin
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