The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and the situation is only going to get 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+ legitimate WordPress web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender site)
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 websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every blog with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. If you think that the information in your website or blog is of little value to hackers, think again. Large, medium and small business sites, personal blogs, government sites … even web sites owned by web security experts can and have been targeted.
If a hacker can hack into and gain remote access of your web site, that web site can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against more valuable sites.
The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are most likely looking for exploits and trying to break into your site at this very moment. Whether they will achieve this depends on how hard you have made it for hackers or bots to continue persisting until they can work out a way to get in, or are forced to give up and go look for an easier target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Website Security Scan Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test will display various results and details about your WordPress site …
(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, then hackers can too.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender site)
The ability to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to malicious attackers and bots.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
Product Description
The product is a package 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 to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This site was fairly new and had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of the event after being informed by his host and observing that a significant amount of unusual activity had taken place inside his server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Source: BlogDefender website)
This simple example demonstrates that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your web site are …
And let’s you fix these quickly …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite includes three WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender suite provides automated backups …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do automated backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods (including FTP and email backups), perform full or partial backups, exclude files or tables from backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Plugin #2 “WordPress Security” provides your WP website with security …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
The “WordPress Security” plugin performs a range of site protection functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Plugin #3 scans your content and files to detect if your source code has been found, and fix any problems found …
(Image source: 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 others benefit from your content without offering you any benefit in return).
Blog Defender – Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes seven video training modules plus downloadable documentation that will teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers …
(Source: BlogDefender website)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
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 website:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use
The plugins are quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugins to your Plugin folder via your administrator area and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is a training product that guides you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free WordPress plugins to install to get things done inexpensively.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Protect your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users attempting to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you’re an info product author (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Banned By Search Engines – When a website has been hacked, expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. As a result, your, sites can get suspended by your webhost, or even deindexed in search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business details and financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender hide your website from hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you fix all of the following areas:
- Host Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- 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
- File Monitoring
- Track Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical sequence of steps to help secure your web site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to quickly identify risky WordPress themes and plugins, and then implementing site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments customers have written about Blog Defender:
“You are literally walked through the process!” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
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”My business is built around the WordPress platform and I’m embarrassed to admin I’ve been slack in the security department. However, Matt’s training soon put that right! I followed each detailed video to the letter and discovered some incredible security tricks and plugins I’d never heard of before. Better still, all the plugins were free to download too! The end result? My WordPress membership site is now locked down tighter than Parkhurst at midnight and if anybody tries hacking it, I’ll be the first to know! thanks again Matt, I’m off to secure the rest of the blogs in my portfolio!” David Walker – www.inboxrockstar.com
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, no Blog Defender-secured sites were hacked since Blog Defender’s release in 2012.
Matt 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.”
The war on hackers is is a never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, won’t cost a fortune and it’s as good if not better than many 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, 30 day, full 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: Price details for Blog Defender can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details:
Additional Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
In Conclusion
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your site is something you cannot ignore.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WP plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting a security policy such as the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your security responsibilities are as the website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if the security on your website is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your installation easier.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress
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