The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and this is only going to get 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 began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Image source: 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)
According to leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a vulnerability provides some type of opportunity to hackers. A compromised web site not only offers newbie hackers opportunities to improve their skills and win “respect” among their peers, but it can also acts as a valuable platform for launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, distributing malware and defrauding site visitors through information theft.
If hackers can exploit a way to remotely take control of your website or blog, that website or blog can then be employed to target other valuable web sites.
The reality is that software-driven bots are very likely scouring for security exploits and trying to hack into your website as you are reading this page. Whether they will hack into your site successfully will depend on how difficult or easy you will make things for them to continue persisting until they work out a way to get access, or give up and go 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 site through their WordPress security check …
(Website Security Scan Product image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan returns a number of results and information about your WordPress site …
(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your site, then hackers can too.
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
Being able to see what 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 potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to hackers and bots.
Blog Defender
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 developer of BlogDefender began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother had been hacked into. This particular blog was devoid of content and so had literally nothing to offer, yet it was still attacked.
Matt only became aware of the event after being contacted by his host and seeing that a significant amount of unusual activity had occurred within the server, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience provides the valuable lesson that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your web site are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly …
Blog Defender – WordPress Plugins
The product suite includes 3 plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
Plugin #1 lets you do secure backups to your server, external servers and leading cloud solutions using a number of backup methods, automate full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
The “WordPress Security” plugin performs a range of vital site protection functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 scans your WP plugins, WordPress themes and core files to see whether code in your files has been tampered with, and fix problems …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious content have been added to your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without providing you anything in return).
Blog Defender – Step-By-Step Videos
In addition to the plugins, Blog Defender also includes seven step-by-step video training modules plus PDF/DOC guides that will show you exactly how to protect your site from malicious attacks …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
The Blog Defender plugins are quite easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as a training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which free WordPress plugins to use to get things done without paying for unnecessary expenses.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Secure your site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Prevent Your Info Products From Theft – If you sell an info product (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up becoming freeware on download sharing sites.
- Avoid A Nightmare Situation – When a site is hacked, you can expect to go through a serious amount of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, account could be closed by your webhost, or even deindexed in search engines. Additionally, your contacts can be spammed, your customer list and financial details could be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender provides many features to WordPress users.
Blog Defender helps you fix the following security areas:
- Webhost 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
- File Monitoring
- Track Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical sequence of steps to help protect your web site, addressing hosting security, using tools to identify risky themes and plugins, and then implementing website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials plugin customers have written about Blog Defender:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to Matt Garrett’s site, no websites using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s release.
Matt 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 an ever-escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and tools that developers currently can access. The latest release of Blog Defender creates 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 most web 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, thirty day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
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.
Note: The cost of purchasing Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Plugin Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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, securing your website is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress core files, plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your security 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 WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Solution
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