The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and this is getting worse.
It’s probably safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 legitimate WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Image 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known 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 website or blog is of little value to hackers, but the reality is that every website has value to a malicious user.
If someone can exploit a vulnerability in the setup, the site can then be used to target other valuable sites.
The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are most likely trying to break into your web site at this very moment. Whether they can get into your site or not, will depend on how challenging you will make things for hackers and botnets to keep persisting until they discover a way to get access, or are forced to decide to look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check returns a number of results and information about your site setup …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can access all of this information, so can hackers.
(Product image source: 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 in your site can all be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive solution to stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to malicious users and botnets.
Blog Defender
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 began developing BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by the hosting company. This site was not being used and had literally nothing of value to offer, yet it still was targeted by hackers.
Matt only became aware of what had happened after being suspended by his host and noticing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had occurred inside the server, as well as the addition of a number of phishing files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Matt’s experience demonstrates that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security weaknesses in your website are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly …
Blog Defender – WP Plugins
The product suite comes with 3 plugins for WordPress:
Pro Plugin #1 “Automated Backups” in the Blog Defender suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do secure site, file and data backups to your server, third-party servers and popular cloud-based 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 (useful when migrating sites to different domains or server locations), search and replace text strings in your database, perform malware scans and blacklist checks automatically, and more.
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides WordPress security …
(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)
This plugin provides a range of vital file and site security functions (see “Plugin Features” section below).
Plugin #3 scans your WordPress website to see if anything unusual in your files or source code has been found, and repair any problems it detects …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
Plugin #3 “WP Scan & Repair” also scans content to see if any malicious URLs have been inserted into your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your content without reciprocating the favor).
Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender WordPress security product suite also includes seven step-by-step video tutorial modules and PDF/DOC documentation that show you exactly how to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Image source: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
The Blog Defender plugins install just like every other WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator area and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender is a DIY step-by-step training product that will take you through the website security process and show you what to do, including how to set things up, and even which plugins you can use for free to get the job done inexpensively.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data miners 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 sell an info product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video tutorials, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid A Nightmare Situation – When a website has been hacked, you can expect to go through a great deal of frustration and aggravation. It can take days to uncover the problem and sort through any issues these have caused. In the meantime, your, website or blog could get suspended by your host, or even deindexed in search engines. Additionally, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your personal details and financial information, you could end up being fined or even charged with fraud, and a whole lot more.
Blog Defender Features
Blog Defender provides many features to WP users.
Blog Defender addresses the following areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- 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 Blocking
- Monitoring Files
- Monitor Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automating 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 site, addressing potential hosting security issues, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky themes and WP plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender WordPress security process. Screenshot: Blog Defender)
Feedback From Users
Below are just a few of the testimonials that users have published about Blog Defender:
”I’ve had to go through the inconvenience of a hacked blog before and let me tell you it’s not nice. With online security becoming an increasing problem, especially with WordPress, this is a great way to secure your blog. I’ll be following Matt’s training and securing all my blogs…Great job.” JohnThornhill – www.johnthornhill.com
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”Just one tip could have prevented my blogs getting hacked!” Richard Legg – www.richard-legg.com
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, Matt Garrett, no Blog Defender-protected websites were hacked since Blog Defender’s release in 2012.
Matt Garrett 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 harness. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t require constant attention, won’t cost a fortune and it’s as good if not better than most web 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 no-risk, thirty day, full refund guarantee.
Software Price
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: Pricing for the Blog Defender software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was correct at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
In Conclusion
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 website security.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WP installation, WP plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.
Adopting security procedures such as the one that Blog Defender provides, will help you understand what’s going on in your site and where the vulnerabilities are, what hosting companies can and can’t do if the security on your site is compromised, what security features to look for in a webhost, and which tools can make the process of securing your website easier.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Suite
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