The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s getting worse.
It’s safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 reported that 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked 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)
According to security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site offers little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that all websites have some value to a malicious user.
If a malicious user can find a software weakness in your security that allows them to gain control of your website, your site can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyber attack against other valuable sites.
The truth is that brute-force software bots are trying to hack into your web site at this very moment. Whether they will get in or not, depends on how challenging you have made things for them to keep trying until they can discover a way to break in, or give up and decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your WordPress Site?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …
(Website Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test will return various results and details about your site setup …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the scanning tool that if you can see all of this information about your website, so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
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 can be useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about potential holes or weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress
Product Description
The product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the creator of the BlogDefender security suit began looking for a way to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular blog had practically nothing to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside the server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into the site.
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
This example shows that that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security vulnerabilities …
And let’s you quickly fix these …
Blog Defender – WordPress Plugins
The product suite includes three plugins for WordPress:
The first plugin in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Product image source: BlogDefender website)
Plugin #1 lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud backup solutions using a number of backup methods (including FTP and email backups), automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating websites to different domains or server locations), search and replace text in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
Plugin #2 performs a range of site and file protection functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 allows you to scan your WP plugins, themes and WP core files to see whether anything in your files has been changed, and repair any problems it uncovers …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious content have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your hard work without offering anything of value in return).
Step-By-Step Training Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender WP security product suite also includes a number of step-by-step training videos and printable guides that will show you exactly how to protect your site from malicious attacks …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In No Time
The Blog Defender plugins are really easy to install. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is a do-it-yourself 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 WordPress plugins you can use for free to get the job done without paying additional expenses.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Protect your WordPress website from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Prevent Your Info Products From Theft – If your site sells information products (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on free downloading sites.
- Avoid Getting Suspended By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a site has been hacked, expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, sites could be closed by your host, or even blocked in search engines. Additionally, your contacts can end up being spammed, your customer list and financial details could be stolen, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender was created to keeps your site and your business safe and secure 24/7.
Blog Defender covers the following issues:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- 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 Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Link Tracking
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical sequence of steps for securing your website, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky WordPress themes and plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have submitted for the Blog Defender solution:
”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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”In the past month alone, I’ve had 3 niche blogs hacked, costing me hundreds of dollars in lost sales – all of which could have been avoided if I followed the steps in this training. I can tell you, there’s nothing worse than spending months building up a blog, adding posts every few days, and then finding it all gone in an instant. The great thing about these ‘over the shoulder’ videos is that you get to see exactly how to do everything, so it doesn’t matter if you’re technically challenged. Just copy what you see on the screen, and then relax knowing your blogs are safe. (Just one of the tips in the first video alone could probably have prevented my blogs getting hacked) I even noticed one or two tips in there that help with SEO too … so following these videos could even bring your blogs more traffic!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to the product’s site, no Blog Defender-secured websites have been hacked since Blog Defender’s first release.
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.”
Cybersecurity 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 harness. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, won’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.
Blog Defender Plugin 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, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
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: The cost to purchase the Blog Defender software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details here:
Additional Plugin Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress installation, WP plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, 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 responsibilities as a website owner are, what hosting companies can and can’t do to help prevent your sites being hacked or compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major security risks without costly solutions.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress Websites
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