The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and the situation is getting worse.
You can safely 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 reported that 160,000+ WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Could your website be next?
(Image source: Blog Defender)
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 security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
You may think that the information in your site has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website is an opportunity to gain some benefit at your expense.
If hackers can discover a security weakness that allows them to gain complete control of your web site, that website can then be used to target larger and more valuable websites.
The truth is that software-driven bots are most likely trying to break into your site at this very moment. Whether they will achieve this will depend on how hard you can make things for hackers to keep trying until they work out a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information About Your 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 …
(WordPress Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the test will display various results and information about your website …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to freely access all of this information, then so can hackers.
(Product image: BlogDefender.com)
Being able 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 can be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.
Fortunately, there is a solution that can stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and help to protect it against other malicious threats.
Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite
Product Description
Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.
Matt Garrett, the developer of BlogDefender began to develop BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother got hacked into and suspended. This blog had practically no value to offer, yet it was still hacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place inside his site, as well as the addition of several phishing files by whoever had broken into his mother’s site.
(Product image source: Blog Defender)
This example shows that that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where potential security holes in your web site are …
And let’s you fix these quickly and easily …
Blog Defender – WP Plugins
The Blog Defender security product includes three WordPress plugins:
The first plugin in the Blog Defender suite provides automated backups …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin lets you do automated site, file and data backups to your server, third-party servers and cloud storage solutions using a number of backup methods, automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from backups, restore backups, replace URLs (useful when migrating sites to different domains or server locations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
The second plugin provides WordPress security …
(Product image source: BlogDefender site)
This plugin provides a range of essential file and site security functions (see “Product Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans WordPress sites to detect if anything in your files has been altered, and repair any problems found …
(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious content have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where others benefit from your content without offering you any reciprocal value or benefit in return).
Video Training
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender security product suite also includes 7 video training modules and downloadable guides that teach you exactly what you need to do to protect your website from malicious attacks …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure
The plugins are quite easy to install. Just upload them to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow
Blog Defender is a practical and useful 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 plugins you can use for free to get the job done.
Additional benefits include:
- Protect your site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners and malicious users whose aims is to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If your site sells digital products (e.g. downloadable e-books, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid A Tragic Situation – When a site is hacked, you can expect to go through a great deal of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through the issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website can get closed by your webhost, or even blocked in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal or financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and more.
Features
Blog Defender offers many features to website owners.
Blog Defender addresses the following issues:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- MySQL Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam Blocking
- File Monitoring
- Link Tracking
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighter Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender provides a logical sequence of steps for securing your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to quickly identify risky themes and plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Image source: BlogDefender.com)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have submitted regarding Blog Defender:
”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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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Useful Tips
According to the plugin developer, since Blog Defender was first released, no sites using Blog Defender were hacked.
Matt Garrett, 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 is a never-ending game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and technologies that developers can get their hands on. 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 many premium 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, 30 day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing 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 the Blog Defender software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was current when this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
For installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install These Plugins
No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, WP plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you understand what your security responsibilities are as a site owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do if your sites are hacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major security risks without investing in expensive solutions.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Blog Defender
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