The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and this is getting worse.
You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts to hack into your site.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com reported that 162,000 legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot: 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)
According to leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a vulnerability presents an opportunity to hackers. No website Large, medium and small business web sites, personal blogs, government websites … even web sites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If hackers can exploit a vulnerability and remotely take control of your web site, that blog can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other highly-valued websites.
The truth is that brute-force software bots are most likely trying to hack into your web site right now. Whether they will achieve this or not, will depend on how hard you have made it for hackers or botnets to keep persisting until they either can discover how to get access, or decide to look for an easier target.
How Much Information About Your WordPress 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 …
(Website Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test will return 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 can freely access all of this information, then so can hackers.
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender site)
Being able to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories in your site can all be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and make your site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress Blogs
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress 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 site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended. This blog had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being informed by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside the site, as well as the addition of several phishing files designed to drive unsuspecting visitors to the site and steal financial details.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Matt’s experience demonstrates that all websites have some value to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for security weaknesses …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly and easily …
WP Plugins
Blog Defender includes 3 plugins:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, perform full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do mass text string replacements in databases, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” performs a range of essential site and file protection functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” lets you scan your plugins, WordPress themes and core files to detect whether anything unusual in your source code or files has been altered, and repair any problems detected …
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious content have been inserted into your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your hard work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Video Tutorials
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes a number of videos plus downloadable guides that teach you exactly what to do to protect your site from malicious users …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure
The plugins are quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugins to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is an easy-to-follow DIY training product that takes you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which plugins you can use for free to get things done.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protect Your Info Products – If your site sells info products (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free downloading sites.
- Avoid A Tragic Situation – When a website gets hacked, expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. During this time, your, site can be suspended by your webhost, or even blocked in search engines. And if that is not painful enough, 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.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender offers a number of features to WordPress users.
The product helps you fix all of the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- 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 Tracking
- Block Known Offenders
- Automating WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical sequence of steps to help protect your site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Image source: Blog Defender)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that users have provided for Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
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”In the past month alone, I’ve had 3 niche blogs hacked, costing me hundreds of dollars in lost sales – all of which could have been avoided if I followed the steps in this training. I can tell you, there’s nothing worse than spending months building up a blog, adding posts every few days, and then finding it all gone in an instant. The great thing about these ‘over the shoulder’ videos is that you get to see exactly how to do everything, so it doesn’t matter if you’re technically challenged. Just copy what you see on the screen, and then relax knowing your blogs are safe. (Just one of the tips in the first video alone could probably have prevented my blogs getting hacked) I even noticed one or two tips in there that help with SEO too … so following these videos could even bring your blogs more traffic!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, no websites or blogs using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s release in 2012.
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 ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools that developers can currently harness. 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 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, thirty day, 100% money-back 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.. Cost = $47.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web site is something you simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP software, WP plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Blog Defender helps you understand what your responsibilities as a website owner 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 which tools can make the process of securing your site easier.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Suite
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