The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and the situation is only going to get worse.
It’s 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 162,000 WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites 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 WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site is of little value to hackers, but the reality is that every website has some value to a malicious user.
If a hacker can find a vulnerability in your security setup, your website can then be employed to target other highly-valued websites.
The reality is that hackers are most likely trying to break into your web site at this very moment. Whether they can do this successfully depends on how hard or easy you have made it for hackers or botnets to keep persisting until they work out a way to break in, or are forced to give up and go 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 Scan Product image source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the check returns various results and details about your site setup …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to see all of this information about your website, then hackers can too.
(Source: BlogDefender website)
The ability to see what 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 valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender
Product Description
The product 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 blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular site was quite new and so had practically nothing of value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of the event after being informed by his host and observing that a significant amount of unusual activity had taken place within his site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
Matt’s experience should be enough to convince you that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your website are …
And let’s you quickly and easily fix these …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite includes 3 plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud-based storage solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. FTP), perform full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating sites to different domains or server locations), do bulk text replacements in databases, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
This plugin provides a range of essential website protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans your WordPress plugins, themes, WordPress core files and content to see whether any code in your files has been altered, and fix problems …
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
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 work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Video Training
In addition to plugins, Blog Defender also includes seven step-by-step video tutorial modules plus written documentation that will teach you exactly what you need to do to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
For more details go here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your site:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
The Blog Defender plugins are really easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugins folder via your admin user area and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that guides you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free plugins to use to get the job done.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Secure your 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 – If you sell info products (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blacklisted By Your Host – When a website has been hacked, 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. Your, account can be closed by your webhost, or even blocked by search engines. And if this is not painful enough, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business or financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides many unique features to website owners.
The product covers the following areas:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- WP 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
- Monitoring Files
- Monitor Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process for securing your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky WP themes and WP plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)
Feedback From Users
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin users have published 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
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”A top level force against hacker attacks!” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured websites were hacked.
Matt Garrett, 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 is a constant game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools that developers can currently get their hands on. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, won’t cost you a fortune and it’s as good if not better than most 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 no-risk, 30 day, full refund guarantee.
Product 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.. Price = $47.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install 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 cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web site.
WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WordPress plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand what your security responsibilities are as the website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your site is attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Product Suite
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