The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and this is getting worse.
It’s safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com reported that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website or blog with a vulnerability can can provide an opportunity to hackers. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your site. Business websites, personal blogs, government sites … even websites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If hackers can discover a vulnerability that allows them to access and take over your blog, that blog can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against other valued websites.
The reality is that brute-force software bots are most likely trying to break into your blog right now. Whether they can achieve this or not, will depend on how hard you have made things for them to continue trying until they discover how to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for an easier target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like 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 test returns various results and information about your site …
(WP security scan results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using this tool that if you can freely access all of this information about your blog, so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
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 can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Sites
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the developer of the BlogDefender security suit began looking for a way to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by its hosting company. This site had literally no value to offer, yet it still was attacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being contacted by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside his server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Source: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience shows that that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress site for potential security vulnerabilities …
And let’s you easily fix these …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite comes with three plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Source: Blog Defender)
The plugin lets you do automated backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), automate full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides your website or blog with security …
(Image source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #2 provides a range of essential website security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” lets you scan your plugins, themes and WordPress core files to see whether your source code has been altered, and fix problems …
(Product image: BlogDefender site)
Pro 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 work without providing anything in return).
Blog Defender – Step-By-Step Training Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender product suite also includes step-by-step video training plus printable guides that will show you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from malicious users …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the 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 Very Little Time
The plugins included with Blog Defender install just like every other plugin. Simply upload them to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is an easy-to-follow DIY step-by-step training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which plugins you can install for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Protect your website from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Secure Your Info Products – If you are an information product author (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Closed By Your Web Host And Delisted By Search Engines – When a site has been hacked, you should expect to go through a whole lot of frustration and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, account could be closed by your webhost, or even blacklisted in search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal or financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender make your your WordPress site invisible to hackers and malicious botnets.
The product helps you fix the following areas:
- Hosting 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
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps to help secure your website, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky themes and plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Testimonials From Customers
Here are just some testimonials and feedback that customers have written 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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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, since Blog Defender was first released, no Blog Defender-secured websites or blogs were hacked.
The product developer 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 currently access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, doesn’t cost 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 no-risk, 30 day, full money-back guarantee.
Software 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.. Price = $47.00.
Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details:
Additional Plugin Information
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Our Recommendation
Regardless of the 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 WP installation, plugins and WP themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security procedures like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what’s going on in your site and where the vulnerabilities are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if the security on your site is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your site easier.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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