One of the important aspects of securing your WordPress site is monitoring the IP addresses of users and user agents accessing your site. There are many situations you may need to block the IP address of a user when running a WordPress blog. Below are some of the scenarios when happens continuously need blocking action from your side:
- User or bot trying to access your login page.
- User or bot leaving spam comments.
How to Monitor Harmful IP Addresses?
In order to block the harmful IPs, first you need to monitor the traffic activities on your site. You can do this on server level or use plugin and monitor on the admin dashboard.
Server Level Monitoring
Login to your hosting account and navigate to the cPanel. Look out under statistics section to check the tools available for monitoring the traffic on your site. Awstats is one of the popular statistics tool offered by almost all of the popular hosting companies. Click on the icon and select your site to view the traffic data.
Opening Awstats from cPanel Hosting Account
Get the full list of IP addresses of the hosts generating traffic to your site by clicking on the “Full List” option under “Hosts” section.
List of Host IPs Accessing Your Site
Similarly get the full list of robots crawling your site by clicking on the “Full List” option under “Robots / Spiders visitors” section.
Getting Robots List from Awstats
These lists provide the list of IP addresses accessing your site and analyzing the list will show you the harmful IPs.
Blocking IPs from cPanel Hosting Account
Once you find out the list of IPs trying to hit your server without valid reasons then the next step is to block them. Go to your cPanel account and click on the “IP Deny Manager” or any similar option.
Open IP Deny Manager in cPanel Hosting
Add the IP addresses to deny access to your site. You can add individual IPs, range, implied range and CIDR format with subnet mask.
Blocking IP Address Using IP Deny Manager
Blocking Bots with .htaccess
Unfortunately no tool in cPanel allows you to directly block user agents or bad robots. You need to use directives in .htaccess file to block the identified robots. Besides the list you found from Awstats robots access list, there are also many readymade lists of bad bots available online. Below is one of the lists available on Github, which you can copy and add under .htaccess file. This is an exhaustive list blocking many known bots along with Baidu Spider and Yandex bot. Learn more on how to edit .htaccess file on your WordPress installation.
# START Blocking Bad Bots Options All -Indexes RewriteEngine on # Block Bad Bots & Scrapers SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Aboundex" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "80legs" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "360Spider" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Java" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Cogentbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Alexibot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^asterias" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^attach" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BackDoorBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BackWeb" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Bandit" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BatchFTP" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Bigfoot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Black.Hole" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BlackWidow" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BlowFish" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BotALot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Buddy" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BuiltBotTough" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Bullseye" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BunnySlippers" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Cegbfeieh" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^CheeseBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^CherryPicker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ChinaClaw" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Collector" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Copier" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^CopyRightCheck" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^cosmos" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Crescent" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Custo" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^AIBOT" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^DISCo" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^DIIbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^DittoSpyder" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Download\ Demon" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Download\ Devil" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Download\ Wonder" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^dragonfly" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Drip" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^eCatch" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EasyDL" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ebingbong" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EirGrabber" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EmailCollector" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EmailSiphon" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EmailWolf" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EroCrawler" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Exabot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Express\ WebPictures" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Extractor" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EyeNetIE" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Foobot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^flunky" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^FrontPage" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Go-Ahead-Got-It" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^gotit" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^GrabNet" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Grafula" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Harvest" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^hloader" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^HMView" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^HTTrack" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^humanlinks" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^IlseBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Image\ Stripper" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Image\ Sucker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Indy\ Library" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^InfoNaviRobot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^InfoTekies" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Intelliseek" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^InterGET" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Internet\ Ninja" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Iria" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Jakarta" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^JennyBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^JetCar" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^JOC" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^JustView" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Jyxobot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Kenjin.Spider" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Keyword.Density" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^larbin" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LexiBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^lftp" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^libWeb/clsHTTP" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^likse" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LinkextractorPro" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LinkScan/8.1a.Unix" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LNSpiderguy" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LinkWalker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^lwp-trivial" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^LWP::Simple" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Magnet" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mag-Net" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^MarkWatch" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mass\ Downloader" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mata.Hari" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Memo" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Microsoft.URL" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Microsoft\ URL\ Control" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^MIDown\ tool" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^MIIxpc" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mirror" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Missigua\ Locator" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mister\ PiX" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^moget" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mozilla/3.Mozilla/2.01" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Mozilla.*NEWT" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NAMEPROTECT" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Navroad" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NearSite" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NetAnts" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Netcraft" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NetMechanic" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NetSpider" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Net\ Vampire" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NetZIP" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NextGenSearchBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NG" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NICErsPRO" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^niki-bot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NimbleCrawler" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Ninja" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NPbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Octopus" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Offline\ Explorer" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Offline\ Navigator" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Openfind" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^OutfoxBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^PageGrabber" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Papa\ Foto" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^pavuk" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^pcBrowser" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^PHP\ version\ tracker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Pockey" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ProPowerBot/2.14" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ProWebWalker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^psbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Pump" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^QueryN.Metasearch" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^RealDownload" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Reaper" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Recorder" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ReGet" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^RepoMonkey" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^RMA" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Siphon" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SiteSnagger" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SlySearch" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SmartDownload" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Snake" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Snapbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Snoopy" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^sogou" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SpaceBison" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SpankBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^spanner" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Sqworm" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Stripper" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Sucker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SuperBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^SuperHTTP" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Surfbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^suzuran" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Szukacz/1.4" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^tAkeOut" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Teleport" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Telesoft" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^TurnitinBot/1.5" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^The.Intraformant" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^TheNomad" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^TightTwatBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Titan" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^True_Robot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^turingos" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^TurnitinBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^URLy.Warning" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Vacuum" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^VCI" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^VoidEYE" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Web\ Image\ Collector" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Web\ Sucker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebAuto" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebBandit" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Webclipping.com" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebCopier" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebEMailExtrac.*" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebEnhancer" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebFetch" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebGo\ IS" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Web.Image.Collector" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebLeacher" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebmasterWorldForumBot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebReaper" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebSauger" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Website\ eXtractor" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Website\ Quester" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Webster" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebStripper" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebWhacker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WebZIP" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Whacker" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Widow" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WISENutbot" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WWWOFFLE" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^WWW-Collector-E" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Xaldon" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Xenu" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Zeus" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "ZmEu" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Zyborg" bad_bot # Vulnerability Scanners SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Acunetix" bad_bot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "FHscan" bad_bot # Aggressive Chinese Search Engine SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Baiduspider" bad_bot # Aggressive Russian Search Engine SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Yandex" bad_bot <Limit GET POST HEAD> Order Allow,Deny Allow from all # Cyveillance deny from 38.100.19.8/29 deny from 38.100.21.0/24 deny from 38.100.41.64/26 deny from 38.105.71.0/25 deny from 38.105.83.0/27 deny from 38.112.21.140/30 deny from 38.118.42.32/29 deny from 65.213.208.128/27 deny from 65.222.176.96/27 deny from 65.222.185.72/29 Deny from env=bad_bot </Limit> # END Blocking Bad Bots
It is also good idea to discuss with your host to find the list of bad bots if they already have one.
Problems with Server Level Blocking
There are few problems with server level IP blocking:
- Most of the time the IPs include the CDN and your own hosting IPs.
- It is difficult to find the harmful IPs just by doing analysis without any references.
- Wrongly blocking IPs will stop the real users instead of hacker’s IP.
- You have no option to add user agents directly in IP deny manager. You need to block those bad bots by directly modifying .htaccess file.
Using Plugin to Block IPs
The tedious job of blocking IPs and user agents on server level can easily be done with a plugin from the admin dashboard. There are many free and paid plugins out there for doing this job perfectly. We will discuss the feature available with one of the popular security plugin “All in One WP Security & Firewall”.
Finding All in One WP Security and Firewall Plugin
Install and activate the plugin from your WordPress admin dashboard. There are settings to be enabled in order to monitor the harmful IP addresses.
- Navigate to “WP Security > Login Lockdown” and enable the option “Enable Login Lockdown Feature”. This will log all the IP addresses trying to login to your site. You can get an instant email when there is a lockdown and view the full list of locked IP addresses under “WP Security > Dashboard > Locked IP Addresses”.
Login Lockdown Option in All in One WP Security and Firewall Plugin
- Enable comment spammer’s IPs under “Spam Prevention > Comment Spam IP monitoring” section. You can automatically block the spammer’s IP permanently when particular number of spam comments is received. All the permanently blocked IPs can be viewed under “Dashboard > Permanent Block List” section.
Once you have the list of harmful IP addresses then navigate to “Blacklist Manager” option. Enter the IP addresses one per line and save your settings. You can enter individual IPs or with wild card like 195.47.89.* or 195.47.*.* or 195.*.*.*.
IP and User Agents Blacklist Manager
When you have the list of bad bots like we provided in the above section, enter all the bot names under “Enter User Agents” section. This will block those bots from accessing your site.
At this moment, the plugin has a bug when the user agent has \ in the name. It adds many slashes automatically every time when you save the list thus making it invalid name.
The plugin also has a paid add-on for country level blocking, which will cost you around $29 for a single site license.
Conclusion
Monitoring and blocking IP addresses in a continuous action and hence we recommend using “All in One WP Security & Firewall” or any other security plugin for this purpose. At the same time, blocking bad bots is one time activity or you can do it as and when required by directly editing .htaccess file. At any case, ensure you are monitoring and blocking the harmful IPs. This will not only help to improve the security of your site but also save bandwidth on your hosting server by denying access to bad users and user agents.
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