The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and this 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 reported that 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs 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 security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every site with a security vulnerability has potential value to hackers. No website or blog Business web sites, personal blogs, government sites … even sites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If hackers can find a way to break in and control your blog, the website can then be used as a “bot” to attack larger and more valued web sites.
The truth is that hackers are very likely scouring for weaknesses and trying to hack into your site while you are reading this article at this very moment. Whether they can get into your site successfully or not, depends on how difficult you will make things for hackers to continue persisting until they either discover how to get access, or decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your WordPress Site?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check will return a number of results and information about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can freely access all of this information, then so can hackers.
(Product image 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 can all be useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and make your site invisible to malicious attackers and botnets.
Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Sites
Product Description
Blog Defender 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 began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended by the webhost. This particular blog was fairly new and had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of the event after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of unusual activity had occurred within the site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to drive unsuspecting visitors to the site and hijack their financial information.
(Product image: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience should be enough to convince you that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress installation for potential security vulnerabilities …
And then shows you how to easily fix these …
WP Plugins
Blog Defender includes three WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender product suite provides automated backups …
(Source: Blog Defender)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure backups to your server, third-party servers and cloud storage solutions using different backup methods (e.g. FTP), perform complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do mass text replacements in databases, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your WP website or blog with security …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
This plugin provides a range of site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Plugin #3 “WordPress Scan & Repair” scans your website to see whether your source code has been altered, and repair problems …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious scripts have been added to your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes step-by-step training in video format plus PDF/DOC guides that will show you exactly how to protect your website from malicious users …
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use
The plugins install like any other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugins to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that takes you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free WordPress plugins you should install to get things done.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protect Your Info Products – If you sell an information product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a site gets hacked, expect to go through a serious amount of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website or blog could get closed by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. And if that is not painful enough, your personal contacts could be spammed, your subscriber list and financial details could be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to WordPress users.
Blog Defender addresses the following security areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress 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
- Monitor Files
- Track Links
- Block Known Offenders
- Automating Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps to help protect your web site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky WordPress themes and WP plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about Blog Defender:
“You are literally walked through the process!” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
***
”A top level force against hacker attacks!” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett’s site, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured sites have been hacked.
Matt Garrett, the product developer states on his site, however …
“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 escalating arms race 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 most 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, 30 day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
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.
Note: Price details for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Get The Product
No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WP core files, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand what your security responsibilities as a website owner are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your sites are hacked or compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your WordPress installation easier.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Plugin
***
***