The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s 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 162,000 legitimate WordPress web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Image: 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 WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a vulnerability offers some value to hackers. A vulnerable site offers malicious users with a resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft.
If hackers can exploit a vulnerability in your web software, your website can then be used to attack larger and more valuable web sites.
The reality is that hackers are trying to hack into your site while you are reading this page right now. Whether they can hack in successfully depends on how challenging you will make it for them to continue persisting until they either can find how to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …
(WP Security Scan Source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check returns various results and details about your WordPress site …
(WP security check results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can access all of this information, so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender site)
The ability 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 all be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Suite
Product Description
The product is a suite 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 began to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This site was fairly new and so had practically nothing to offer, yet it still was hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred inside his server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Image source: Blog Defender)
This simple example illustrates the fact that every website has some value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security weaknesses in your WordPress installation are …
And then shows you how to easily fix these …
WP Plugins
The Blog Defender security suite of products comes with three plugins:
The first plugin in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Source: BlogDefender website)
This plugin lets you do secure site and file backups to your server, external servers and leading cloud-based storage solutions using a number of backup methods (including FTP and email backups), perform complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore 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.
Plugin #2 provides WordPress security …
(Image source: Blog Defender)
This plugin provides a range of website security functions (see “Features” section below).
Plugin #3 allows you to scan your website or blog to detect whether code in your files has been altered, and repair problems …
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #3 “WordPress Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious scripts have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 step-by-step training modules (video) and printable guides that show you exactly how to protect your site from malicious users …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product suite install just like every plugin. Just upload the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow do-it-yourself training product that guides 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 install for free to get things done inexpensively.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Helps Avoid Intellectual Property Theft – If you’re an information product creator (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a site is hacked, you should expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. As a result, your, sites could get suspended by your host, or even blocked by search engines. And if that isn’t enough to have to deal with, your contacts could end up being spammed, your subscriber list and financial details can be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender offers a number of features to web site owners.
The product provides fixes for the following areas:
- Host 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
- File Monitoring
- Link Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating 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 protect your site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to identify risky WordPress themes and plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Source: BlogDefender.com)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that plugin users have provided for the Blog Defender product suite:
”Great way to secure your blog!” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
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”I discovered some incredible security tricks!” David Walker – www.inboxrockstar.com
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett’s site, no websites secured by the solution have been hacked since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012.
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 is a never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the information and tools that developers presently can access. 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 most web security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Blog Defender 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, thirty day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin 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.
Note: Current pricing for the Blog Defender plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here:
Additional Plugin Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
We Recommend
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of website security.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your security responsibilities are as the website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your websites are hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major WordPress security holes without costly solutions.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress
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