The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and this is only going to get worse.
You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts to hack into your site.
On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Could yours be next?
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender site)
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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your website has no value to hackers, but the reality is that every website has some value to a malicious user.
If hackers can find a way to gain access and control of your website or blog, that web site can then be used to attack larger and more highly-valued sites.
The reality is that brute-force software bots are most likely trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they will break in successfully depends on how difficult or easy you have made things for hackers to keep persisting until they either can discover a way to break in, or are forced to decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your WordPress Site?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …
(WP Security Check Screenshot source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the test will return various results and information about your site …
(WP security check results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can freely access all of this information about your site, so can hackers.
(Image source: BlogDefender site)
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 in your site can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution that will stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and make your site invisible to malicious users and botnets.
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 the BlogDefender security suit began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother got hacked into. This particular site had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being contacted by his host and observing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred within his server, as well as the addition of several malicious files by whoever had broken into the site.
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience shows that that all websites have some value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security weaknesses in your WordPress installation are …
And let’s you fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …
WordPress Plugins
The product suite comes with three plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the product suite provides automated backups …
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #1 lets you do secure site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, perform complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files 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.
The second plugin provides your website with security …
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
Plugin #2 provides a range of essential file and site protection functions (see “Features” section below).
Pro Plugin #3 “WordPress Scan & Repair” allows you to scan WordPress sites to detect if anything has been found, and repair any problems detected …
(Image source: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious content have been added to 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 in return).
Blog Defender – Step-By-Step Videos
In addition to plugins, Blog Defender also includes several videos plus printable documentation that will teach you exactly what you need to do to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits
Here 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:
Installation Is Easy And Simple
The plugins included with Blog Defender are quite easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a step-by-step training product that will guide you through the website security process and show you exactly what to do, including how to set things up, and even which WordPress plugins you can use for free to get the job done.
Some additional benefits and advantages 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.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If your site sells an information product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Banned By Search Engines – When a website is hacked, you should expect to go through a whole lot of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website or blog could be suspended by your host, or even blocked by search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides many features to WordPress users.
The product helps you fix all of the following security areas:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WP Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Link Monitoring
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automating Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process to help secure your website, addressing hosting security, using tools to identify risky themes and plugins, and then implementing site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Product image source: BlogDefender site)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have provided for Blog Defender:
”This is probably one of those times you ask yourself ‘do I really need this product?’ Let’s face it, on the surface it’s not going to immediately put more money in your pocket or even add some cool new gizmo to your site… The truth is yes you do and you need it now. I’ve been in the online business for 10+ years and had my fair share of hacked sites which have cost me time and money (lots of it)…I’ve also seen a good number of people have their reputations and entire businesses left in tatters when their sites have been hacked. Right now is the time to act, because when it’s too late, well basically you’ll be screwed (and you’ll regret the day you passed over such a great opportunity to protect yourself for so little). And by the way, if you think your web host will come to your rescue think again, you’ll be on your own, paying to put things right and suffering the cost of lost sales and business. This is a seriously good product and if you rely on WordPress to make you money online then it’s nothing less than essential. Buy it, follow Matt’s expert advice and don’t end up another victim!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.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 plugin developer, Matt Garrett, since Blog Defender was first released back in 2012, no websites secured with the product were hacked.
Matt Garrett, the product developer 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.”
The war on hackers is an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and technologies that developers can harness. 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 most web security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Product 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, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
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.. Cost = $47.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the Blog Defender plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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, securing your websites is something you simply cannot ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like making sure that your WP software, plugins and WordPress themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting a security policy such as the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your security responsibilities as a website owner 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 how to avoid all the major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Solution
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