The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and this is getting worse.
You can safely assume that if you haven’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 over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Could yours be next?
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
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 WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your site has no significant value to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.
If a hacker can exploit a software security flaw, your website can then be employed as a “bot” to attack more highly-valued sites.
The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are most likely trying to hack into your web site right now. Whether they will get in or not, depends on how difficult or easy you will make things for them to keep trying until they either discover how to break in, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(WP Security Scan Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test returns a number of results and details about your website …
(website security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using this scanning tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your website, then so can hackers.
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)
Being able 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 on your server are all valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your web site and protect against malicious attacks.
Blog Defender
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the creator of the BlogDefender security suit began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother got hacked into. This particular blog had practically no value to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and observing that a significant amount of unusual activity had taken place inside his server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to drive unsuspecting victims to the site and hijack their Paypal account information.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
This example demonstrates that every website has some value to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you website for potential security vulnerabilities …
And let’s you quickly fix these …
Blog Defender – WP Plugins
The product suite includes 3 WordPress plugins:
The first plugin in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Plugin #1 lets you do automated backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud backup 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 previous 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 web site with security …
(Product image: BlogDefender website)
Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides a range of vital site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Plugin #3 allows you to scan your content and files to detect if any code in your files has been changed, and fix problems …
(Product image: BlogDefender website)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been added to your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your hard work without reciprocating the favor).
Tutorials Videos
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes training in video format plus downloadable guides that teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Product image: BlogDefender website)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin 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:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product suite install like any regular plugin. Simply upload them to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a DIY 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 free WordPress plugins you should use to get the job done without paying additional costs.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users whose aims is to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Protect Your Info Products – If you sell a digital product (e.g. downloadable e-books, videos, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid A Nightmare Situation – When a site is hacked, expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website could get closed by your host, or even deindexed in search engines. In addition, your personal contacts could be spammed, your subscriber list and financial details can be stolen, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to web site owners.
Blog Defender provides fixes for all of the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WP Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WordPress Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hiding WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Monitoring Links
- Blocking Known Offenders
- Automating WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical process to help protect your web site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to quickly identify risky themes and WordPress plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Source: BlogDefender website)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that users have submitted regarding Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.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
Useful Tips
According to the product’s website, no Blog Defender-secured websites were hacked since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012.
Matt Garrett 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.”
The war on hackers is is a perpetual game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers currently have access to. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, doesn’t cost a fortune and it’s as good if not better than many premium security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
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, 100% refund guarantee.
Software 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 Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
What 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 cannot ignore the importance of website security.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting security procedures 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 security risks without paying a lot of money.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender
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