Attacks on WordPress sites are growing on a daily basis. For instance, the the last 30 Days data from WordFence claims to have blocked:
- Total Attacks Blocked 4,601,750,612
- Malicious IPs Blacklisted 132,979
One of the most effective meothods
Precautions:
As you’re aware, .htaccess is the control room of your whole website. Even a single misspelt dot (.) can destroy your complete website. Before making any changes, back up your .htaccess file to an
.htaccess is always found in the root directory of your WordPress. WordPress uses this file to manipulate how Apache serves files from its root directory and subdirectories thereof. Most notably, WP modifies this file to be able to handle pretty permalinks.
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPressDisable Directory Browsing
Unauthorized access to your files and folders can be a major security risk. While security by obscurity is generally frowned upon, it is best to hide as much info as possible. The less the hacker knows about you, the less likely he will be able to attack you.
By adding the snippet below into your .htaccess file, access to your directories will be disabled.
# disable directory browsing
Options All -IndexesProtect .htaccess
To protect your .htaccess copy the code below in your .htaccess
# Protect .htaccess
<files ~ "^.*\.([Hh][Tt][Aa])">
order allow,deny
deny from all
satisfy all
</files>
# End Protect .htaccessAbuse Agent Blocking
One method of blocking hackers involves blocking bots from even seeing your website. If a bot stumbles onto your website and is immediately repelled, you’ve just scored a big win security-wise. Don’t be a target, be a bot killer!
# Start Abuse Agent Blocking
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Mozilla.*Indy" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Mozilla.*NEWT" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^$" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Maxthon$" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^SeaMonkey$" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Acunetix" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^binlar" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^BlackWidow" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Bolt 0" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^BOT for JCE" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Bot mailto\:craftbot@yahoo\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^casper" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^checkprivacy" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^ChinaClaw" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^clshttp" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^cmsworldmap" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Custo" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Default Browser 0" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^diavol" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^DIIbot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^DISCo" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^dotbot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Download Demon" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^eCatch" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^EirGrabber" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^EmailCollector" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^EmailSiphon" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^EmailWolf" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Express WebPictures" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^extract" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^ExtractorPro" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^EyeNetIE" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^feedfinder" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^FHscan" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^FlashGet" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^flicky" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^g00g1e" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^GetRight" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^GetWeb\!" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Go\!Zilla" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Go\-Ahead\-Got\-It" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^grab" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^GrabNet" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Grafula" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^harvest" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^HMView" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Image Stripper" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Image Sucker" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^InterGET" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Internet Ninja" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^InternetSeer\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^jakarta" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Java" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^JetCar" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^JOC Web Spider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^kanagawa" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^kmccrew" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^larbin" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^LeechFTP" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^libwww" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Mass Downloader" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^microsoft\.url" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^MIDown tool" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^miner" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Mister PiX" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^MSFrontPage" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Navroad" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^NearSite" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Net Vampire" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^NetAnts" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^NetSpider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^NetZIP" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^nutch" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Octopus" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Offline Explorer" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Offline Navigator" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^PageGrabber" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Papa Foto" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^pavuk" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^pcBrowser" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^PeoplePal" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^planetwork" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^psbot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^purebot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^pycurl" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^RealDownload" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^ReGet" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Rippers 0" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^sitecheck\.internetseer\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^SiteSnagger" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^skygrid" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^SmartDownload" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^sucker" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^SuperBot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^SuperHTTP" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Surfbot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^tAkeOut" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Teleport Pro" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^turnit" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^vikspider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^VoidEYE" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Web Image Collector" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebAuto" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebBandit" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebCopier" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebFetch" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebGo IS" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebLeacher" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebReaper" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebSauger" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Website eXtractor" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Website Quester" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebStripper" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebWhacker" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WebZIP" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Widow" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WPScan" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WWW\-Mechanize" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WWWOFFLE" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Xaldon WebSpider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^Zeus" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^zmeu" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "360Spider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "CazoodleBot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "discobot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "EasouSpider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "ecxi" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "GT\:\:WWW" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "heritrix" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "HTTP\:\:Lite" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "HTTrack" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "ia_archiver" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "id\-search" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "IDBot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Indy Library" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "IRLbot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "ISC Systems iRc Search 2\.1" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "LinksCrawler" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "LinksManager\.com_bot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "linkwalker" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "lwp\-trivial" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "MFC_Tear_Sample" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Microsoft URL Control" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Missigua Locator" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "MJ12bot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "panscient\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "PECL\:\:HTTP" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "PHPCrawl" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "PleaseCrawl" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "SBIder" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "SearchmetricsBot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Snoopy" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Steeler" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "URI\:\:Fetch" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "urllib" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Web Sucker" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "webalta" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "WebCollage" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Wells Search II" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "WEP Search" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "XoviBot" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "YisouSpider" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "zermelo" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "ZyBorg" [NC,OR]
# End Abuse Agent BlockingBlocking Referrer spam
Referrer spam is becoming a problem. If you’re not familiar with referrer spam, it’s traffic from bots that impersonate a referral link. The pseudo traffic is designed to make their domain show up in your site analytics so that you’ll visit the site. Apart from this, they tend to eat up your bandwidth, which can in effect slow down your website or even open your website to other
# Start Abuse HTTP Referrer Blocking
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} "^https?://(?:[^/]+\.)?semalt\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} "^https?://(?:[^/]+\.)?kambasoft\.com" [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} "^https?://(?:[^/]+\.)?savetubevideo\.com" [NC]
# End Abuse HTTP Referrer Blocking
Protect wp-config.php
In WordPress, wp-config.php is the file where your hosting,
<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>Protect /wp-contents/
Wp-contents is the folder in your WordPress directory that contains files of your themes, plugins, media and cached files. That’s why this directory is the main target for hackers and spammers. Create a separate .htaccess file. Copy and paste the snippet below, in that file.
# Place this .htaccess within your /wp-contents/
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
<Files ~ ".(xml|css|jpe?g|png|gif|js)$">
Allow from all
</Files>By uploading this file, only media files are allowed to be uploaded including XML, CSS, JPG, JPEG, PNG, Gif, and Javascript. All other file types will be denied.
Password Protect Your /wp-admin Folders
A common method for all hackers is to use brute force and get access to your WordPress. There are a lot of blogs and WordPress advisors who will advice you to limit access to your WordPress via a restricted IP. We live in a world where a lot of ISP provide dynamic IP address. Also, when you are blogging on the move – you will never know your IP address. Which means for each new IP you will need to update your .htaccess before you can access your directory.
Rather, it is preferred that password protect your folder via .htacces – when you are hosting with us, it is extremely easy to protect your directory.
If you are hosting with another Hosting Provider or have your own VPS, please follow these instructions: Read More
Block comment spammers and bad bots
If you know someone is abusing your website, continuously spamming or launching hacking attempts, you can get his IP from your WordPress Admin Panel and add that IP to your .htaccess file to completely restrict access to your website. Just copy & paste the snippet below into your .htaccess file and he’ll not be able to access your website. Be sure to replace the IP address of that spammer.
# Block comment spammers and bad bots
# Add your custom IP block list here. Example format:
# deny from 4.53.120.22
# End Block comment spammers, bad bots and some proxiesFinal Comments
While this is just starting point to secure your WordPress. There are several threat to your WordPress. It is always better to have experts who can help you to protect your WordPress.
When you host with Geek Crunch Hosting – Business Hosting, there are a lot of additional security features that are provided like Web Application firewall (mod-sec) etc. Which will protect your WordPress installations from injections etc. We also perform weekly scan to check if there are any malicious code that are there. Apart from that a lot of php fucntions are blocked at server levels, which will not allow hackers to get control of your WordPress.
Download the complete .htaccess file
There are two files here, one if .htaccess for
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