The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and the situation is getting worse.
You can safely assume that if you haven’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 over 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs 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)
According to security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that every website has value to a malicious user.
If a hacker can hack and compromise the control of your website or blog, that blog can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber attack against larger and more highly-valued websites.
The reality is that hackers are looking for exploits and trying to break into your website while you are reading this article at this very moment. Whether they will successfully hack in depends on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers and botnets to continue persisting until they either can find a way to get access, or give up and go look for an easier target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Website Security Check Product image: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the check returns various results and information about your site …
(Hackertarget – website security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the scanning tool that if you can access all of this information, so can hackers.
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
The ability 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 on your server can all be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender
Product Description
The product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the creator of BlogDefender began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This particular blog was fairly new and had practically nothing of value to offer, yet it still was attacked.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being contacted by his host and seeing that a significant amount of unusual activity had taken place within his site, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files designed to lure unsuspecting visitors to the site and steal financial information.
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Matt’s experience provides the valuable lesson that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security holes …
And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …
Blog Defender – Plugins
Blog Defender includes 3 plugins:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Product image source: BlogDefender website)
This plugin lets you do secure site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, perform complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating websites to different domains or server locations), do mass text string replacements in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides your website or blog with security …
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
The “WordPress Security” plugin performs a range of essential site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans your content and files to detect whether your source code has been changed, and repair problems …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious content have been added to your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your hard work without offering you anything of benefit in return).
Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 training modules in video format plus printable guides that show you exactly how to protect your website from hackers and bots …
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your site:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
The plugins included with Blog Defender install like any plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is a practical and useful training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free WordPress plugins to install to get the job done.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Secure your website from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Prevent Your Info Products From Being Stolen – If your site sells a digital product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free download sites.
- Avoid Getting Blacklisted By Your Host – When a website is hacked, expect to go through a great deal of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website could get closed by your host, or even blocked in search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal or financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender offers many great features to web site owners.
Blog Defender helps you fix all of the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- WP Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WordPress Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Link Tracking
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automating WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical sequence of steps to help protect your site, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky themes and WP plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have provided for the Blog Defender product:
”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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”Since working with blogs, I… like many others, have been concerned about how to handle the constant threat of blog attacks. After having a look at Blog Defender you can’t help but become most aware of the vulnerable areas all bloggers need to protect. Blog Defender is viable WordPress blog security prevention system that offers video instruction along with 3 software plugins that are free to download. The instruction shows the optimum settings on how to use the free plugins that will allow you top level force against blog hacker attacks.” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Useful Tips
According to the plugin’s site, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-protected sites have been hacked.
Matt Garrett, the product developer 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 is a perpetual game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can get their hands on. 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 most web 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, 30 day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
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.. Cost = $47.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the Blog Defender product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here:
Additional Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Buy This Product
Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, WP plugins and 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 learn what your responsibilities are as a website 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 WordPress website easier.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
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