The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and the situation is getting worse.
It’s safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s inevitable that at some point in time someone will attempt to hack into your site.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(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 flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website provides little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that all websites have value to a malicious user.
If someone can exploit a software security flaw and take over your web site, the site can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against other valuable sites.
The truth is that hackers are looking for vulnerabilities and trying to break into your web site while you are reading this right now. Whether they will break into your site or not, will depend on how hard you can make it for hackers to keep persisting until they either can work out a way to get access, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information About Your WordPress Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(WP Security Scan Screenshot image: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the check will return various results and information about your WordPress setup …
(website security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to access all of this information, hackers can too.
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
Being able 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 can be useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a solution to stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender
Product Description
The product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the developer of BlogDefender developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This blog had practically nothing of value to offer, yet it still was 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 the site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
This simple example illustrates the fact that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you WordPress site for potential security vulnerabilities …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
WP Plugins
Blog Defender includes 3 WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and popular cloud-based backup solutions using different backup methods, perform complete 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 in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Plugin #2 “WordPress Security” provides your website or blog with security …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin provides a range of vital file and site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan your plugins, themes and core files to detect if your source code has been changed, and repair any problems found …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
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 others benefit from your work without reciprocating the favor).
Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes seven videos and training guides that show you exactly what you need to do to protect your site from hackers …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
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 website:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product suite are very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a DIY 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 plugins you can install for free to get things done.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Secure your site from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Prevent Your Info Products From Being Freely Distributed – If your site sells an info product (e.g. downloadable e-books, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid A Tragic Situation – When a site has been hacked, expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, account could get closed by your host, or even deindexed in search engines. And if that is not painful enough, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business details or financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Features
Blog Defender provides many unique features to WP users.
Blog Defender provides fixes for the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Link Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process to help secure your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky themes and WP plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Image source: Blog Defender)
Feedback From Users
Below are just a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about the Blog Defender plugin:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”A top level force against hacker attacks!” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Plugin Tips
According to Matt Garrett’s site, no websites using Blog Defender were hacked since Blog Defender was first released in 2012.
Matt 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.”
Cybersecurity is is a constant game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and technologies that developers can currently harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, is quite inexpensive 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 risk-free, 30 day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Price
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 price of Blog Defender can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was correct when this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller 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 details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install The Plugins
Regardless of the type 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 very secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP core files, plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand 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 process of securing your WordPress site easier.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress
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