The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and this is 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 began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Screenshot 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)
As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every website or blog with a security vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. An unsecured web site not only presents hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and claim “bragging rights” amongst their peers, but it can also serve as a valuable resource for launching DDoS attacks, distributing malware and defrauding visitors through information theft.
If a hacker can exploit a weakness in your security and gain remote access and control of your website or blog, the website or blog can then be used as a “bot” to attack larger and more valuable websites.
The harsh reality is that malicious bots are probably looking for security exploits and trying to hack into your site at this very moment. Whether they will successfully hack into your site depends on how difficult you can make it for hackers or bots to keep persisting until they work out a way to get access, or decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test returns various results and details about your WordPress installation …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can freely access all of this information about your WordPress site, then so can hackers.
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
The ability 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 are all potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, 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 got hacked into and suspended. This particular blog was new and had practically nothing to offer, yet it still was hacked.
Matt only became aware of the event after being suspended by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside the server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files designed to lure visitors to the site and steal Paypal account details.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience shows that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your website are …
And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …
Blog Defender – WordPress Plugins
The Blog Defender security product comes with 3 WordPress plugins:
Plugin #1 in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #1 lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, third-party servers and cloud-based backup solutions using different backup methods (including FTP and email backups), perform full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
This plugin performs a range of site security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans your content and files to see whether code in your files has been changed, and fix problems …
(Source: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been inserted into your site, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your hard work without reciprocating the favor).
Blog Defender – Video Tutorials
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes 7 training modules in video format and downloadable documentation that will teach you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from malicious users …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Below 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 website:
Installation Is Easy & Fast
The plugins install just like every plugin. Simply upload them to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user account and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow DIY training product that will guide you through the website security process and show you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which plugins you can use for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Secure your website 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.
- Protects Intellectual Property From Being Stolen – If you’re a digital product author (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Closed By Your Web Host And Banned By Search Engines – When a website has been hacked, expect to go through a serious amount of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, sites can be closed by your webhost, or even deindexed in search engines. Additionally, your contacts could be spammed, your subscriber list and financial details can be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides a number of great features to website owners.
The product covers the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- 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 Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Track Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating Core WP Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical sequence of steps to help protect your site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky WP themes and plugins, and then implementing site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials and comments customers have provided for the Blog Defender product:
”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
***
”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, no Blog Defender-secured sites have been hacked since Blog Defender was first released back 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 an escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools that developers can currently harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, is quite inexpensive and it’s as good if not better than most premium 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, 30 day, 100% money-back 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.. Price = $47.00.
Please Note: Pricing for Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Plugin Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install The Plugins
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your websites is something you cannot ignore.
WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, plugins and themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security procedures such as the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what’s going on in your site and where the security holes are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your sites are attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major WordPress security holes without investing in expensive solutions.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites & Blogs
***
***