The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and this is only going to get worse.
It’s probably 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 over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Image 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 leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your site provides little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that all websites are valuable to a malicious user.
If hackers can find a security flaw, the web site can then be employed as a “bot” to attack other highly-valued sites.
The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are most likely scouring for weaknesses and trying to break into your website or blog while you are reading this article at this very moment. Whether they can successfully break in depends on how hard you can make things for hackers to continue persisting until they can find how to get in, or are forced to decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …
(WordPress Security Check Product image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan will display various results and information about your site setup …
(website security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can freely access all of this information about your site, hackers can too.
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
The ability to see which 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 in your site are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and make your site invisible to hackers and bots.
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, 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 blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended by the webhost. This particular site was new and so had literally nothing to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being informed by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred within the server, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Product image source: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience demonstrates that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your web site are …
And let’s you easily fix these …
WordPress Plugins
Blog Defender comes with 3 plugins for WordPress:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
The plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and cloud storage solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. FTP), schedule complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Plugin #2 provides WordPress security …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #2 performs a range of site protection functions (see “Features” section below).
The third plugin lets you scan your WordPress website or blog to see whether any code in your files has been changed, and repair problems …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your content without providing you anything of value in return).
Blog Defender – Video Training
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender security product suite also includes 7 step-by-step video training modules and printable documentation that teach you exactly what to do to protect your website from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
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 web site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
The plugins included with Blog Defender are really easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugins folder via your admin user account and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a practical and useful training product that will walk you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free plugins you should use to get things done without paying extra expenses.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Protect your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you sell info products (e.g. downloadable e-books, video training, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a website gets hacked, expect to go through a serious amount of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, website could be suspended by your host, or even blocked in search engines. Additionally, your personal contacts can end up being spammed, your customer list and financial details can be stolen, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to site owners.
Blog Defender provides fixes for the following areas:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- WordPress 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 Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Track Links
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process for securing your website, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky WP themes and WP plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Product image source: BlogDefender site)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding Blog Defender:
”Great way to secure your blog!” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.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 developer, Matt Garrett, since Blog Defender’s first release, no sites protected by the product have been hacked.
Matt Garrett, the product developer 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 perpetual game of cat and mouse 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, doesn’t cost you a fortune and it’s as good if not better than many 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 refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
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: Current pricing for the Blog Defender product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Plugin Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Use These Plugins
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 simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure 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 have disastrous consequences.
Adopting a security policy like the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your security responsibilities are as the website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do to help prevent your sites being compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites & Blogs
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