The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and things are only going to get worse.
It’s probably safe to 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 over 160,000+ WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites and blogs are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot: 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 flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Every web site with a security vulnerability can present an opportunity to hackers. No website Business web sites, personal blogs, government websites … even websites owned by web security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.
If a hacker can find a software flaw in your security, your website or blog can then be used as a “bot” to attack other valuable websites.
The truth is that hackers are trying to break into your website while you are reading this article right now. Whether they will break in successfully or not, depends on how hard you have made things for hackers to keep trying until they either discover how to break in, or are forced to decide to look for a less protected target.
How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …
(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Source: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check will yield a number of results and details about your WordPress site …
(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can see all of this information, so can hackers.
(Product image: Blog Defender)
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 on your server are all potentially useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about any holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution that will stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and protect against malicious attacks.
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Product Description
The product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
Matt Garrett, the creator of the BlogDefender security suit developed BlogDefender after noticing that a WordPress-driven site he set up for his mother had been hacked into and suspended by its webhost. This blog was devoid of content and so had practically no value 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 taken place inside the site, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
This simple example demonstrates that every website has value to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security holes in your web site are …
And then shows you how to fix these quickly …
Blog Defender – Plugins
The product suite includes three plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
The “Automated Backups” plugin lets you do automated backups to your server, external servers and well-known cloud solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. FTP), automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore previous backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), do mass text replacements in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Plugin #2 “WP Security” provides WordPress security …
(Source: BlogDefender site)
Pro Plugin #2 “WP Security” performs a range of site protection functions (see “Blog Defender Features” section below).
The third plugin lets you scan your website to see if anything unusual in your source code or files has been changed, and repair any problems it finds …
(Product image: Blog Defender)
Pro Plugin # 3 also scans content to see if any malicious content have been added to your site files, bans bad bots, blocks brute force attacks and detects any content leeching (where people benefit from your work without reciprocating the favor).
Video Tutorials
In addition to the plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes training in video format and downloadable guides that show you exactly what to do to protect your site from malicious users …
(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Blog Defender
Here 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:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product install like any other WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as an easy-to-follow training product that guides you through the website security process and shows you exactly what to do, including how to set everything up, and even which free plugins you should use to get the job done inexpensively.
Additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers, spammers, botnets, data mining tools and malicious users attempting to ruin your business for their own personal and financial gain.
- Helps Prevent Intellectual Property Theft – If you sell information products (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your product can end up as freeware on free download sites.
- Avoid Getting Blocked By Search Engines – When a website has been hacked, expect to go through a whole lot of inconvenience and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through the issues these have caused. As a result, your, website or blog can get suspended by your webhost, or even blacklisted by search engines. In addition, hackers can spam your contact list and steal your business and financial information, you could be fined or even charged with fraud, and much more.
Features
Blog Defender provides a number of features to WP users.
Blog Defender helps you fix all of the following issues:
- Host 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
- Track Links
- Known Offender Blocking
- Automate Core Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tighten Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps to help protect your site, addressing hosting security, using scanning and detection tools to identify risky themes and plugins, and then implementing site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender website security process. Screenshot: BlogDefender site)
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback users have written 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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”I sure wish I’d had this before I lost over a dozen blogs just recently. Okay, it was my fault for not securing things more, BUT… I didn’t have a handy, current reference like this to turn to for quick help either.;)” Kathe Lucas – www.wackycentral.com
Plugin Tips
According to the plugin developer, no Blog Defender-protected websites or blogs have been hacked since Blog Defender’s release.
Matt Garrett, the product developer also 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.”
The war on hackers is is a constant game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools developers can currently get their hands on. The latest release of Blog Defender creates an easier security solution that doesn’t need constant attention, is quite inexpensive and it’s as good if not better than most premium security products or services currently being offered at a higher price.
Blog Defender 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, complete refund guarantee.
Product 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.
Please Note: Current pricing for Blog Defender depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product sells for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Information
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Our Recommendation
Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress software, plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.
Adopting security policies such as the one Blog Defender provides, will help you learn what your responsibilities are as a website owner, what hosting companies can and can’t do to help prevent your sites being attacked, what security features to look for in a webhost, and how to avoid all the major WordPress security holes without paying a lot of money.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender
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