The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and the situation is only going to get 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 162,000 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(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 flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that your website has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that every website has value to a malicious user.
If someone can find a security flaw, that web site can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other highly-valued sites.
The harsh reality is that hackers are very likely trying to break into your web site right now. Whether they can get into your site successfully or not, will depend on how hard or easy you have made things for them to keep trying until they work out how to get access, or are forced to give up and go look for a less protected target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your WordPress Site?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Product image: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)
You will see that the check will display various results and information about your website …
(WP security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can see all of this information about your blog, so can hackers.
(Screenshot: Blog Defender)
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 can be valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way you can stop broadcasting all of this information about your website and make your site invisible to hackers and bots.
Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress
Product Description
Blog Defender 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 to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress blog he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular blog was almost brand new and so had practically nothing to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being contacted by his host and noticing 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 his site.
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
Matt’s experience provides the valuable lesson that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security weaknesses …
And let’s you fix these quickly …
Plugins
The Blog Defender security product comes with three WordPress plugins:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender product suite provides automated backups …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure backups to your server, third-party servers and well-known cloud solutions using different backup methods (e.g. FTP), automate full or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating websites to different domains or server locations), do bulk text replacements in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin # 2 provides your web site with security …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
The plugin provides a range of site and file security functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan your WordPress plugins, WordPress themes and WP core files to detect if anything unusual in your source code has been altered, and fix any problems detected …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin #3 “WordPress 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).
Blog Defender – Tutorials Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender security product suite also includes several step-by-step tutorial videos plus training documentation that will teach you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from malicious attacks …
(Image source: BlogDefender website)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Below we have listed 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:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
The plugins included with Blog Defender install just like any WP plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin section and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow DIY step-by-step training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which WordPress plugins you can use for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Protect your 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.
- Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you are a digital product creator (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Blacklisted By Your Host – When a site has been 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. As a result, your, websites could be suspended by your webhost, or even deindexed by search engines. Additionally, your contacts can end up being spammed, your subscriber list and financial details could be stolen, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Features
Blog Defender offers a number of great features to WP users.
Blog Defender helps you fix the following security areas and vulnerabilities:
- Host Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- WP 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 Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Tracking Links
- Block Known Offenders
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical process to help secure your web site, addressing potential hosting security issues, 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: BlogDefender.com)
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about Blog Defender:
”This is a seriously good product!” 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
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett’s site, no Blog Defender-protected sites have been hacked since Blog Defender’s release.
Matt Garrett 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 is a never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can currently harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, is quite inexpensive and it’s as good if not better than most web security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Blog Defender 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 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.. Price = $47.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Information
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
The Bottom Line
No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your site.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting a security policy like the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what your security responsibilities are as a site owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your sites are compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your WordPress site easier.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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