The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and it’s getting worse.
You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 162,000 legitimate WordPress web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot image: 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)
According to security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.
If a malicious user can discover a security vulnerability that lets them gain remote access and control of your web site, that blog can then be employed to target more valued sites.
The harsh reality is that hackers are trying to hack into your site at this very moment. Whether they will hack into your site or not, depends on how hard or easy you can make things for hackers or botnets to keep persisting until they can discover how to get access, or give up and go look for an easier 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 check …
(Hackertarget – Website Security Scan Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the scan will return various results and details about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can freely access all of this information, hackers can too.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender site)
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 on your server can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and help to protect it against malicious attacks.
Blog Defender
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the developer of BlogDefender began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This blog was not being used and had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of unusual activity had taken place within his site, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
This simple example illustrates the fact that all websites have some value to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security weaknesses …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly and easily …
Plugins
Blog Defender comes with three plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud-based backup solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), schedule full or partial backups, exclude files or tables 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 malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides WordPress security …
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
The plugin performs a range of vital file and site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
The third plugin lets you scan WordPress sites to see whether code in your files has been altered, and fix any problems found …
(Image source: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious scripts 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 reciprocating the favor).
Video Training
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender WP security product suite also includes video training guides plus written guides that teach you exactly how to protect your website from malicious attacks …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
More info:
Benefits
Below are just some of the many 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 No Time
The Blog Defender plugins install just like any WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugins to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a do-it-yourself step-by-step training product that will take you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free WordPress plugins to use to get the job done.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Secure your site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protect Your Info Products From Theft – If your site sells a digital product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on free downloading sites.
- Avoid Getting Suspended By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a website gets hacked, expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, website can be suspended by your host, or even blacklisted in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal details and financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Features
Blog Defender was created to locks down your site and keeps your business safe and secure 24/7.
The product provides fixes for all of the following issues:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Link Tracking
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automate WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical sequence of steps to help protect your website, addressing potential hosting security issues, 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 security process. Screenshot source: BlogDefender site)
Feedback From Customers
Below are just some testimonials users have published about the Blog Defender plugin:
”Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re too small or not important enough to be hacked! I’ve found out that I’ve had bots in the backend of my sites, making alterations and changing things around, so there’s no telling what damage they’ve caused. I’ve had my main blog for over 3 years now, and the thought of losing all the hard work I’ve put into it is just devastating, not to mention costly! I have a shared hosting plan, so of course once they can get into one site, they can also access the others. Luckily, I now have the procedures detailed within Blog Defender in place so that I can prevent the majority of this ever happening again. Once you’ve secured one site it gets a lot quicker to secure all subsequent sites. With Blog Defender, you get easy-to-follow videos, along with a detailed checklist that you can downloadf. You are literally walked through the process of securing your blog against hackers, which has given me real peace of mind. This is a growing issue that all website owners are facing; so it isn’t going to go away. Prevention is better than cure, particularly as some of the nastier hacks around can literally ruin your business. So do yourself a favour – get your sites protected now, before it’s too late.” Nikki Stephens, www.nikkistephens.com
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”A top level force against hacker attacks!” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no Blog Defender-secured sites were hacked since Blog Defender’s release.
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 never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can get their hands on. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier 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.
Product 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 Cost
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.. Price = $47.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Blog Defender software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Use These Plugins
No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Adopting security procedures such as 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 if your sites are attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your WordPress installation easier.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Solution
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