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 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 websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Image: 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website or blog has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites provide an opportunity to profit or benefit at your expense.
If someone can discover a software weakness in your security that allows them to take over your website or blog, that website can then be employed to attack other valued websites.
The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are looking for exploits and trying to hack into your site while you are reading these very words. Whether they can hack into your site successfully will depend on how hard or easy you will make things for them to keep trying until they discover a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a less protected target.
How Much Information About Your WordPress Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(WordPress Security Check Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check will yield a number of results and information about your site …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to see all of this information, then so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
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 are all potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress
Product Description
The product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the creator of BlogDefender developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended. This site had literally nothing to offer, yet it still was attacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside his server, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files by whoever had broken into the site.
(Source: Blog Defender)
This example should be enough to illustrate the fact that all websites have some value to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress site for potential security weaknesses …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite includes 3 plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin lets you do automated backups to your server, third-party servers and popular cloud-based backup solutions using different backup methods (e.g. FTP), schedule full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating websites to new domains or server locations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides your web site with security …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides a range of website security functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 allows you to scan your plugins, themes, WP core files and content to see if anything in your files has been changed, and repair any problems detected …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Plugin #3 “WordPress Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been added to your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without reciprocating the favor).
Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes several video tutorials plus downloadable documentation that show you exactly what you need to do to protect your site from hackers …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Here 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 website:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
The plugins included with Blog Defender are quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugins to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator section and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow do-it-yourself training product that will walk you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free plugins you should use to get things done inexpensively.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- 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 From Being Shared Around The Net – If you are an information product creator (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blacklisted By Your Host – When a website gets hacked, expect to go through a whole lot of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. As a result, your, sites could get closed by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business or financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender offers a number of great features to site owners.
The product helps you fix all of the following security areas:
- Host 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 Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Link Monitoring
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows 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 WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about Blog Defender:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”I discovered some incredible security tricks!” David Walker – www.inboxrockstar.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, no websites or blogs secured by the product 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.”
The war on hackers is is a constant game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and technologies that developers can access. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, won’t cost a fortune and it’s as good if not better than most web security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Blog Defender 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, 30 day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Price
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.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was correct when this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Get The Product
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 afford to ignore.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WP installation, plugins and WP themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting a security procedure such as the one Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what’s going on in your site and where the vulnerabilities are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your website is attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid major security risks without costly solutions.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Plugin
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