The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and this is getting worse.
It’s safe to assume that if you haven’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 websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot 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)
As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your website or blog is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to profit or benefit at your expense.
If a malicious user can exploit a way to take over your web site, the web site can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber attack against other valuable web sites.
The truth is that software-driven bots are most likely looking for exploits and trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can get in depends on how difficult you can make things for hackers to keep persisting until they work out a way to get access, or are forced to decide to look for an easier 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 scan …
(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Check Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test will display a number of results and details about your WordPress installation …
(WP security scan results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can access all of this information, hackers can too.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
The ability to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories in your site are all potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
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 malicious attackers and botnets.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the developer of BlogDefender developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress site he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This particular site was fairly new and so had practically nothing to offer, yet it was still targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred within the site, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Product image: Blog Defender)
Matt’s experience should be enough to illustrate the fact that all websites are valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender scans you web site for potential security vulnerabilities …
And then shows you how to easily fix these …
Blog Defender – Plugins
Blog Defender includes 3 plugins:
Pro Plugin # 1 in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
The plugin lets you do secure site, file and data backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud storage solutions using a number of backup methods, schedule complete or partial backups, exclude files or tables from backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides WordPress security …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides a range of essential site and file security functions (see “Features” section below).
Plugin #3 lets you scan your content and files to see whether anything unusual in your source code or files has been found, and fix any problems detected …
(Source: Blog Defender)
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 others benefit from your content without providing you anything of benefit in return).
Video Training
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender security suite also includes seven video training modules plus downloadable documentation that will show you exactly how to protect your website from hackers …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are 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:
Ready To Use In Minutes
The plugins install just like every WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugins to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a training product that walks you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free WordPress plugins to install to get things done.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users attempting to exploit your site for their own personal and financial gain.
- Protect Your Info Products – If you’re a digital product creator (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up as freeware on free downloading sites.
- Avoid A Tragic Situation – When a website is hacked, expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and aggravation. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, account can be suspended by your host, or even deindexed in search engines. And if this isn’t painful enough, your personal contacts could end up being spammed, your subscriber list and financial details could be stolen, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Plugin Features
Blog Defender was created to keeps your site and your business safe and secure 24/7.
The product helps you fix all of the following issues:
- Webhost Security Advisory
- WP Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WP Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Link Monitoring
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender follows a logical process for securing your site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to quickly identify risky themes and plugins, and then helping you implement website-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Source: BlogDefender.com)
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments plugin users have provided for the Blog Defender solution:
”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
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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 plugin developer, no websites using Blog Defender have been hacked since Blog Defender’s original release.
Matt Garrett, the product developer states on his site …
“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 perpetual game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools that developers can currently access. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier WordPress security solution that doesn’t need 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.
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 risk-free, 30 day, full refund guarantee.
Software 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 can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author 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 Plugin Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Download This Product
Regardless of the 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 website security.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WordPress plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting a security procedure such as 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 site is hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the task of securing your site easier.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Suite
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