The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s getting worse.
You can safely assume that if you haven’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 160,000+ legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(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)
As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website with a vulnerability presents an opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable web site not only presents new hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and claim “bragging rights” among their peers, but it can also acts as a resource for DDoS attacks, distributing malware and participating in information theft.
If someone can hack and take over your site, your web site can then be employed to target other highly-valued websites.
The truth is that brute-force software bots are very likely trying to break into your web site at this very moment. Whether they will be successful or not, depends on how difficult or easy you will make things for hackers and botnets to keep persisting until they can find a way to get access, or are forced to give up and go 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 Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan will display a number of results and information about your site …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to access all of this information about your site, then so can hackers.
(Product image source: 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 all be useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable security weaknesses, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the developer of BlogDefender began to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This particular blog had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being contacted by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred within the server, as well as the addition of several malicious files designed to drive visitors to the site and hijack their Paypal account information.
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
Matt’s experience shows that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security holes in your web site are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly and easily …
Plugins
The Blog Defender security product suite comes with 3 plugins:
The first plugin in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, third-party servers and leading cloud-based solutions using different backup methods (including FTP and email backups), automate full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do mass text replacements in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Plugin #2 provides WordPress security …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
Plugin #2 provides a range of essential file and site protection functions (see “Features” section below).
The third plugin scans your plugins, themes, core files and content to detect if any of your files have been tampered with, and repair any problems found …
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” 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 people benefit from your content without offering anything of value in return).
Blog Defender – Video Tutorials
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 videos and written guides that show you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender site)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Below 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:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use
The plugins included with Blog Defender install like every WordPress plugin. Just upload them to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is a DIY step-by-step training product that will guide you through the website security process and show you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which WordPress plugins you can install for free to get the job done.
Additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Secure your site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protects Intellectual Property From Theft – If your site sells digital products (e.g. downloadable e-books, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid A Nightmare Situation – When a website gets hacked, you can expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, sites can get closed by your webhost, or even blacklisted by search engines. And if this is not enough to have to deal with, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal details and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender hide your WordPress web site from hackers and malicious botnets.
The product addresses the following issues:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- WP 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 Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Link Tracking
- Block Known Offenders
- Automating Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical process to help protect your site, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky WordPress themes and plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Product image: BlogDefender site)
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that users have submitted regarding the Blog Defender product suite:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin’s website, since the release of Blog Defender, no Blog Defender-secured websites have been hacked.
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.”
The war on hackers is an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and technologies that developers presently 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 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 no-risk, thirty day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software 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.. Price = $47.00.
Note: The price of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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, website security is something you cannot ignore.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress core files, WP plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your responsibilities as a website owner are, 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 security risks without paying for costly solutions.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Plugin
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