WordPress Defender: 30 Steps You Can Take to Stop Your Blog from Getting Hacked

Mar 1, 2010
19 Comments

book-and-dvd-setWordPress Defender (all links in this post are affiliate links) by John Hoff will show you 30 things you can do to protect your blog from malicious attacks. These attacks happen constantly. Often they are completely automated and the attacker does not know you or care who you are. It doesn’t matter if your blog is popular or not.

Unless you are taking specific steps to defend your blog, you are taking too great a chance that one day you will discover your blog is wiped out and treated by Google and antivirus programs as a suspected attack/malware site. Don’t think it won’t happen to you: that’s what everybody thinks until it’s too late. Think about all the hard work you put into your blog — all wiped out in an instant.

John Hoff is a frequent commenter here and on many of the other blogs I read. I had no idea he knew so much about WordPress security, but apparently his wife’s jewelry site which ran on WordPress got hacked big time. Suddenly, they were losing a thousand dollars a month revenue because of it. John tells the story here where you can learn everything you need to about WordPress Defender so you can decide if it’s right for you.

A few weeks ago, John kindly gave me a review copy of WordPress Defender. At 150 pages of solid instructional content, plus 14 step-by-step videos, this thing is no joke. Most of us aren’t WordPress security experts, but that’s ok, because John explains everything so that even non-techie folks can lock down their blogs against attack.

Even better, you cannot beat the introductory pricing on WordPress Defender. John is selling this 150-page ebook and 14 screencast instructional videos for $19.99. However, this introductory pricing will only last 3 days. Then it will double, so take advantage of the early bird special now.

John also has a 30-day money-back guarantee and you can contact him if you have any questions or issues. You get a lot (peace of mind, is what it really is) for twenty bucks, basically.

Check out WordPress Defender now.

  • Amanda
    Does this apply to wordpress.com hosted sites as well? Thanks Amanda
  • remarkablogger
    No it does not. One supposed advantage of being on WordPress.com is they
    handle any security issues. I say "supposed" only because I don't know for
    sure how well they're doing at it. I'm not trying to imply anything.
  • Mike Korner
    Everyone running Wordpress should worry about security but few even discuss it. Michael, thanks for raising awareness of this problem and solution. John, thanks for sharing your lessons learned and for keeping the cost affordable.
  • Thanks for sharing this. I also think we can't have enough ways to keep our blogs safe from attacks. Attacks can come in many forms, and we need to know how to stay safe from most if not all of these.
  • Who doesn't want their blog to be safe and secure? I balked - not at the cost - but at the thought of having to read 150 pages or view lots of videos just to make my site safe. What, no magic wand to wave? But I actually read most of the sales letter - down to the video on the robots.txt file. Which then made me realize exactly how vulnerable blogs are, and even if it takes some effort, it's much less than it would take to restore my blog, let alone my reputation.

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Michael! And more thanks to John for creating it.
  • Interesting, I tried scribe and LOVED it so maybe this would be something I should look into as well... Thanks!
  • Thank you Michael for such a wonderful post. I spent many long hours plopped down in my computer chair figuring out how to fight these guys.

    It's been quite a journey for me, but well worth it if I can help my fellow bloggers avoid the mess my wife's site got into.
  • You're costing me money everyday :), but this one is a no-brainer....it has happened to me and my whole site was wiped out and disappeared, so this is a must. Been thinking about finding out about better security, so this was perfect timing for this post!
  • DJ, I'm so sorry to hear that. Is that not the most awful feeling. You know these jerks out there really could care less about us. They sure didn't care to know that part of what my wife's site did was help pay for diapers for my two boys.
  • I bought it immediately, now I just have to make the time to go through it all, but I already uploaded the robot.txt file in the one video I saw :).
  • Michael, Thanks for sending this link. I got the book and within the first 20 pages had a DUH moment and wondered why I had never thought of doing that...:) Great use of $20 on a Monday morning!!!
  • Thanks, Tara. I often times have those DUH moments myself. It's good when I get those, because it keeps me on my toes.
  • DONE thanks Michael on a mission to share with others :)
  • Yup. I had a pretty unpopular blog of mine get hacked a couple of years ago and it was a major pain. I had to do a lot of work to undo the damage, but it gave me a reason to learn about securing my sites, for which I'm grateful.
  • I'd have to agree. The majority of us not only don't know enough about our blog security, but we also do not give it enough thought. We always think it is something that would happen to someone else - but not us.
  • Exactly Tom. One of my blog readers came to me one day and said, "You know what John, my site was hacked. I should of known better because I read your blog."

    They got hacked because they didn't think it would happen to them, and it cost them money to get it all fixed up.
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