The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and things are only going to get 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 began reporting that over 160,000+ WordPress sites had been hacked.
Thousands of websites are attacked every year! Will yours be one of them?
(Screenshot image: 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 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 website or blog with a security vulnerability offers some value to hackers. No website or blog is safe from being attacked. Large, medium and small websites, personal blogs, government websites … even sites owned by web security experts can and have been targeted.
If someone can find a flaw in your security that allows them to take over and control your blog, that website can then be employed to target more valued sites.
The truth is that malicious bots are very likely trying to break into your site as you are reading this article right now. Whether they will hack in successfully or not, will depend on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers and bots to continue persisting until they work out how to get access, or give up and go look for a more vulnerable target.
How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?
If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …
(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Scan Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)
You will see that the check returns a number of results and details about your WordPress site …
(WordPress security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)
It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can freely access all of this information, then hackers can too.
(Source: BlogDefender.com)
Being able 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 be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.
Fortunately, there is a solution that will stop broadcasting all of this information about your site and make your site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites
Product Description
Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.
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 site was not being used and so had literally no value to offer, yet it still was attacked.
Matt only became aware of this after being informed by his host and seeing that a significant amount of suspicious activity had taken place within the server, as well as the addition of a number of malicious files by whoever had broken into his site.
(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)
Matt’s experience shows that every website is valuable to hackers.
Blog Defender shows you where the security weaknesses in your website are …
And let’s you quickly and easily fix these …
Plugins
The product suite includes three plugins for WordPress:
Plugin #1 in the Blog Defender product suite helps you schedule automated backups …
(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)
Plugin #1 lets you do secure backups to your server, external servers and cloud-based backup solutions using a number of backup methods (e.g. Email), automate complete or partial backups, exclude tables or files from your backups, restore backups, replace URLs (for site migrations), search and replace text in your WordPress database, perform auto database scans and repairs, and more.
Plugin #2 “WordPress Security” provides your website or blog with security …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
Plugin #2 “WP Security” performs a range of website security functions (see “Features” section below).
Pro Plugin # 3 scans WordPress sites to see if anything unusual in your source code has been found, and repair problems …
(Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)
Pro Plugin # 3 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 people benefit from your content without offering anything of value in return).
Blog Defender – Step-By-Step Videos
In addition to plugins, the Blog Defender suite of products also includes several training videos plus PDF/DOC documentation that will teach you exactly how to protect your site from hackers and bots …
(Screenshot image: Blog Defender)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Blog Defender to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets on your web site:
Installation Is Easy & Fast
The plugins included in the Blog Defender product install just like any WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP admin login and activate.
Simple And Easy To Follow Training
Blog Defender can be used as a practical and useful training product that takes 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 without paying additional expenses.
Additional benefits include:
- Secure your WordPress website from hackers, spammers, bad bots, data miners and malicious users attempting to exploit your site for personal and financial gain at your expense.
- Protects Intellectual Property From Being Stolen – If your site sells an information product (e.g. downloadable ebooks, video training, etc.), your work can be stolen and end up becoming freeware on peer-to-peer sharing sites.
- Avoid Getting Banned By Search Engines – When a site has been hacked, expect to go through a great deal of frustration and heartache. It can take days to uncover problems and sort through any issues these have caused. Your, web presence can get suspended by your webhost, or even blocked in search engines. In addition, 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.
The product addresses the following security areas:
- Hosting Security Advisory
- WordPress Plugin Security Audits
- Theme Security Audits
- Anti Brute Force Security
- Anti Cross-Site Scripting
- WordPress Database Security
- Nefarious Traffic Blocking
- Hide WordPress ‘Tell Tale’ Signs
- Anti-Comment Spam
- File Monitoring
- Link Tracking
- Block Known Offenders
- Automate WordPress Updates
- WordPress Security Audit
- Tightening Server Security
- Kick Out Policy
- Online Reputation Checking
- And More …
Blog Defender uses a logical sequence of steps to help secure your your WordPress installation, addressing potential hosting security issues, using tools to quickly identify risky WP themes and plugins, and then helping you implement site-wide security using the tools and plugins provided.
(Blog Defender security process. Product image source: Blog Defender)
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have written about the Blog Defender security products:
”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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”A top level force against hacker attacks!” Micheal Nicholas, Impact Info Marketing
Useful Tips
According to Matt Garrett, the plugin developer, no websites using Blog Defender were hacked since Blog Defender was originally released.
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 constant game of cat and mouse and all security solutions are only as good as the knowledge and tools that developers can currently harness. The latest release of Blog Defender provides users with an easier 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 no-risk, thirty day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
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 price of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Info
For help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Blog Defender website.
Install These Plugins
Regardless of the 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 essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress software, plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.
Blog Defender helps you learn what your security responsibilities are as the site owner, 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 how to avoid major security risks without paying a lot of money.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress
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