The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and this is getting 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.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Screenshot: 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 security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site provides no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to benefit or profit at your expense.
If hackers can find a web software flaw that allows them to remotely take control of your website, that web site can then be employed as a “bot” to attack larger and more highly-valued sites.
The reality is that software-driven bots are probably scouring for security weaknesses and trying to hack into your blog at this very moment. Whether they will achieve this or not, depends on how challenging you can make things for hackers or bots to keep trying until they discover how to get in, or are forced to give up and go look for a less secure target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Product image source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the scan will yield various results and details about your site …
(website security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can see all of this information about your site, then so can hackers.
(Product image: Blog Defender)
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 on your server are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable security weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and make your site invisible to malicious attackers and bots.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Product Description
The product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the creator 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 hosting company. This particular site had practically no value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred inside the server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to drive visitors to the site and hijack Paypal account details.
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience provides the valuable lesson that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress site for potential security vulnerabilities …
And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …
Plugins
The Blog Defender security suite of products comes with three WordPress plugins:
Plugin #1 in the Blog Defender product suite provides automated backups …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and popular cloud-based storage solutions using different backup methods (e.g. Email), schedule full or partial backups, exclude files or tables from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Plugin #2 provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
This plugin provides a range of site and file protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
The third plugin lets you scan your files and content to detect if your source code has been found, and fix any problems it finds …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been added to your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Video Training
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender product suite also includes 7 video training modules and training guides that teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers …
(Image source: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product suite install just like every other WordPress plugin. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow step-by-step training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free plugins you should install to get things done inexpensively.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Secure your site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Prevent Your Info Products From Being Shared Around The Net – If you are a digital product creator (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blacklisted By Your Host – When a site has been hacked, you can expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. As a result, your, account can get suspended by your host, or even blocked in search engines. And if that is not enough to have to deal with, your contacts could end up being spammed, your subscriber list and financial details can be stolen, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to site owners.
Blog Defender helps you fix all of the following issues:
- Host Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- WordPress 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 Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical sequence of steps for securing your your WordPress installation, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky WordPress themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Image source: BlogDefender site)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials customers have provided for Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
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“Sure wish I’d had this before I lost over a dozen blogs just recently!” Kathe Lucas – www.wackycentral.com
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no sites protected by the product were hacked since Blog Defender was first released.
Matt Garrett, 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.”
Cybersecurity is an escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and tools that developers presently can access. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, is quite inexpensive 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 risk-free, thirty day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software 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.. Price = $47.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Blog Defender can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
What We Recommend
No matter what kind 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 afford to ignore.
WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WordPress software, WordPress plugins and WP themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Blog Defender helps you learn what’s going on in your site and where the security holes are, what hosting companies can and can’t do to help prevent your sites being hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your WordPress site easier.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender
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