The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and things are only going to get worse.
It’s safe to 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 over 162,000 legitimate WordPress sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Source: BlogDefender website)
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 sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a vulnerability can present an opportunity to hackers. No blog is safe from a cyberattack. Business sites, personal blogs, government web sites … even web sites owned by web security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If a hacker can find a software weakness in your security that allows them to gain control of your blog, your site can then be used to attack other valued sites.
The reality is that brute-force software bots are very likely searching for weaknesses and trying to break into your website or blog right now. Whether they will break in or not, will depend on how hard or easy you will make it for them to keep persisting until they either work out a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …
(WordPress Security Scan Image source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the test will return various results and details about your site setup …
(Hackertarget – website security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using this tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information, so can hackers.
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
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 in your site can be valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and protect against malicious attacks.
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package 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 developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by its webhost. This site was fairly new and had literally nothing to offer, yet it still was attacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and seeing that a significant amount of unusual activity had occurred within the server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to lure unsuspecting victims to the site and hijack their financial details.
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience shows that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security holes …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly …
Plugins
The product suite includes 3 plugins for WordPress:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), perform full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides your WP website with security …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
The plugin performs a range of essential website protection functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” scans your content and files to detect if code in your files has been changed, and fix any problems detected …
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious content have been inserted into your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without providing any benefit in return).
Blog Defender – Video Tutorials
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes seven step-by-step video tutorial modules plus training guides that teach you exactly what to do to protect your site from malicious attacks …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
More info:
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages 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 in the Blog Defender product are really easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a practical and useful training product that will guide you through the website security process and show you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get things done inexpensively.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Helps Avoid Intellectual Property Theft – If you are an info product author (e.g. downloadable e-books, video training, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Closed By Your Web Host And Delisted By Search Engines – When a website is hacked, you can expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, website or blog could get suspended by your host, or even deindexed by search engines. And if that is not painful enough, your personal contacts could end up being spammed, your customer list and financial details could be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender provides a number of features to website owners.
The product helps you fix the following areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- WP 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
- Monitoring Files
- Link Tracking
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process to help protect your site, addressing hosting security, using tools to quickly identify risky themes and plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments users have provided for Blog Defender:
“You are literally walked through the process!” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured sites have been hacked.
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 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.
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 no-risk, thirty day, complete 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.. Cost = $47.00.
Please Note: Pricing for Blog Defender can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct when this content was published. This may not be the actual price set by the software author when you visit the plugin 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 help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your website is something you simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting a security policy like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your security responsibilities are as the website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do to help prevent your sites being 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 more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress
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