The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are 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 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot source: 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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to gain some advantage at your expense.
If someone can access and gain remote control of your web site, the website can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against more valuable sites.
The reality is that hackers are very likely scouring for security weaknesses and trying to hack into your site right now. Whether they can successfully break into your site or not, will depend on how difficult or easy you have made things for hackers to keep persisting until they can discover how to get in, or give up and go look for an easier target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check returns a number of results and details about your site …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information, then hackers can too.
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender site)
The ability 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 are all valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a simple way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to hackers and bots.
Blog Defender
Product Description
Blog Defender 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 developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother got hacked into. This blog was almost brand new and had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this 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 several phishing files by whoever had broken into the site.
(Image source: Blog Defender)
This simple example should be enough to illustrate the fact that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you website for potential security holes …
And let’s you fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite comes with 3 plugins:
The first plugin in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Image source: Blog Defender)
The plugin lets you do secure backups to your server, external servers and leading cloud-based solutions using a number of backup methods, automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating sites to new domains or server locations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides your website with security …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
The plugin performs a range of essential file and site protection functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan WordPress sites to detect whether anything in your files has been modified, and fix any problems found …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin # 3 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 people benefit from your content without reciprocating the favor).
Videos
In addition to plugins, Blog Defender also includes 7 step-by-step video tutorial modules plus PDF/DOC guides that will show you exactly how to protect your site from hackers …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
The plugins are really easy to install. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow DIY training product that will take you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which WordPress plugins you can install for free to get things done without paying for extra expenses.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Protect your site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users attempting to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protect Your Info Products From Being Freely Distributed – If you are an info product creator (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Your Web Host And Deindexed By Search Engines – When a site gets hacked, you should expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. As a result, your, website or blog can get closed by your host, or even blocked by search engines. And if this is not painful enough, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal details or financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to web site owners.
The product helps you fix the following issues:
- Host Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WP Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Link Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process to help protect your web site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky themes and WP plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Product image source: Blog Defender)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments users have written 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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”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, no Blog Defender-secured websites were hacked since Blog Defender was first released.
Matt also 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.”
Cybersecurity is an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and technologies that developers can get their hands on. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, won’t cost you a fortune and it’s as good if not better than most premium 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 risk-free, thirty day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Cost
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: Pricing for Blog Defender can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was correct at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged 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 current pricing details:
Additional Information
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
What We Recommend
Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Adopting a security procedure like the one Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your security responsibilities are as a site owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your website is attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your website easier.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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