The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and the situation is getting worse.
It’s safe to 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 reported that 162,000 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website has no significant value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website is an opportunity to gain some benefit at your expense.
If a hacker can break in and compromise the control of your web site, that site can then be employed to target larger and more valued web sites.
The harsh reality is that hackers are most likely searching for security weaknesses and trying to hack into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they will break into your site or not, depends on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers and botnets to keep persisting until they discover a way to get access, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – Website Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the scan returns various results and details about your site …
(WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can access all of this information about your blog, so can hackers.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
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 are all potentially useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about potentially exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and protect against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Websites
Product Description
The product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the creator of the BlogDefender security suit developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular blog had practically nothing of value to offer, yet it still was hacked.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being suspended 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 the site.
(Source: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience should be enough to convince you that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your web site are …
And then shows you how to quickly fix these …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite includes three WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Source: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” lets you do secure backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud-based backup solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), perform full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating sites to new domains or server locations), search and replace text in your database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your site with security …
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” performs a range of site and file security functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
The third plugin scans your content and files to detect if any of your files have been altered, and fix the problem …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Pro Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious scripts have been added to 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).
Tutorials Videos
In addition to the plugins, Blog Defender also includes a number of step-by-step tutorial videos and written documentation that will teach you exactly what to do to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits
Below 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:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up
The plugins install just like any plugin. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugins to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a practical and useful 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 install for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Secure your WordPress website from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners 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 info product author (e.g. downloadable ebooks, videos, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free download sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a website gets hacked, you can expect to go through a great deal of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, sites can get suspended by your host, or even blocked in search engines. In addition, your personal contacts can be spammed, your customer list and financial details can be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender offers a number of features to WP users.
Blog Defender addresses the following areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress 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
- Monitor Files
- Link Tracking
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process to help protect your your WordPress installation, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky WordPress themes and WordPress plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Image source: Blog Defender)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted for Blog Defender:
”This is a seriously good product!” Simon Hodgkinson, www.hodgkinsonpublishing.com
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”My business is built around the WordPress platform and I’m embarrassed to admin I’ve been slack in the security department. However, Matt’s training soon put that right! I followed each detailed video to the letter and discovered some incredible security tricks and plugins I’d never heard of before. Better still, all the plugins were free to download too! The end result? My WordPress membership site is now locked down tighter than Parkhurst at midnight and if anybody tries hacking it, I’ll be the first to know! thanks again Matt, I’m off to secure the rest of the blogs in my portfolio!” David Walker – www.inboxrockstar.com
Plugin Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no websites using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s first release in 2012.
Matt 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 an escalating arms race and all security solutions are only as good as the information and tools developers 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 many 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, 30 day, full refund guarantee.
Product 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.
Please Note: Current pricing for Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Our Recommendation
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your sites.
WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress installation, plugins and WordPress themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies like the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what’s going on in your site and where the vulnerabilities are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your website is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your site easier.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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