The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and it’s 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 reported that 160,000+ WordPress websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot 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 WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website with a vulnerability offers some value to hackers. An unsecured website or blog presents malicious users with a valuable platform for launching denial of service attacks, spreading malware and to engage in information theft.
If hackers can find a way to break in and remotely control your web site, the blog can then be used to attack other highly-valued sites.
The truth is that hackers are trying to break into your web site as you are reading this page. Whether they can get in or not, depends on how difficult or easy you have made it for them to keep trying until they can find a way to break in, or are forced to decide to look for an easier target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check returns various results and details about your website setup …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your blog, then so can hackers.
(Source: BlogDefender site)
Being able to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that will stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and make your site invisible to malicious users and botnets.
Blog Defender
Product Description
The product 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 began to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by the hosting company. This particular blog was not being used and so had practically 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 suspicious activity had taken place inside the server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
This example should be enough to illustrate the fact that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your WordPress installation are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
WP Plugins
The product suite comes with 3 WordPress plugins:
The first plugin in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” lets you do automated site and file backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud storage solutions using different backup methods (e.g. Email), automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your website with security …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides a range of essential website protection functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans your files and content to detect if anything has been modified, and fix the problem …
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
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 people benefit from your hard work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Video Training
In addition to plugins, Blog Defender also includes 7 video tutorial modules plus PDF/DOC documentation that will teach you exactly how to protect your site from malicious attacks …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
For more details go here:
Plugin 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:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement
The plugins are quite easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugins folder via your admin user login and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a useful do-it-yourself training product that will walk you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get the job done.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Secure your website from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protects Intellectual Property From Theft – If you are a digital product creator (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid A Tragic Situation – When a site has been 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. Your, website or blog could get closed by your host, or even blocked in search engines. And if that is not enough to have to deal with, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business or financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides a number of features to WP users.
The product provides fixes for all of the following issues:
- Host Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- WordPress Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WordPress Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- Monitoring Files
- Link Tracking
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical process to help secure your website, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky WP themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Image source: Blog Defender)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials users have published about Blog Defender:
”Great way to secure your blog!” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
***
”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no websites using Blog Defender were hacked since Blog Defender’s release in 2012.
Matt Garrett also 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 never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the information and tools developers presently can access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, doesn’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.
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, full money-back 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: The cost to purchase Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the 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 installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Our Recommendation
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web site.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP core files, plugins and WordPress themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting security procedures like the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your security responsibilities as a website owner are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your site is hacked or compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your WordPress installation easier.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Blog Defender
***
***