The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and things are getting worse.
It’s safe to 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 began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Could yours be next?
(Image source: 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)
According to security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website or blog with a security vulnerability provides some value opportunity to hackers. An unsecured website presents hackers with a resource for launching DDoS attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft.
If a malicious user can discover a security weakness that lets them remotely take control of your website, your website can then be used to attack more highly-valued web sites.
The reality is that software-driven bots are very likely trying to hack into your website while you are reading this at this very moment. Whether they will get into your site successfully will depend on how difficult you can make it for hackers or botnets to keep persisting until they can either work out a way to break in, or decide to look for an easier target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …
(WordPress Security Scan Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the test will return various results and details about your site …
(website security scan results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your WordPress website, then hackers can too.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Being able 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 be potentially valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about any security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress Sites
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 blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This blog had literally nothing to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being contacted by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred inside the site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to drive unsuspecting victims to the site and steal financial details.
(Source: Blog Defender)
This example shows that every website has some value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your web site are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
Blog Defender – Plugins
Blog Defender comes with 3 plugins:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
This plugin lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and cloud backup solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. FTP), perform complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating sites to different domains or server locations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your website or blog with security …
(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” performs a range of vital site and file security functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
The third plugin scans your plugins, themes, core files and content to detect whether any code in your files has been tampered with, and fix problems …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
Plugin #3 “WP 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 work without providing anything of value in return).
Blog Defender – Video Training
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender WP security product suite also includes 7 step-by-step training modules (video) and printable guides that teach you exactly how to protect your website from malicious attacks …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Here are just some of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
The plugins are quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugins to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free WordPress plugins to install to get things done without paying for additional or unnecessary expenses.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Protect your WordPress website from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Protect Your Info Products – If you are an information product creator (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Closed By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a site is hacked, you should expect to go through a serious amount of frustration and aggravation. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, site can be suspended by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. Additionally, your contacts could be spammed, your customer list and financial details can be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides a number of features to WordPress users.
Blog Defender provides fixes for all of the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WordPress Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Monitoring Links
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automating Core WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process to help secure your website, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to quickly identify risky WordPress themes and plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin customers have provided for Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.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 website, no websites or blogs secured by the product were hacked since Blog Defender was first released in 2012.
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.”
Cybersecurity is an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and technologies that developers currently can access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t need 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.
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.
Plugin Pricing
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.. Price = $47.00.
Note: The price of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller 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 Plugin Information
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WP software, WP plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand what’s going on in your site and where the vulnerabilities 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 how to avoid major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
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