How to prevent malicious bots from visiting my website

During a targeted attack towards your website it is common that malicious bots will access your web site attempting to gain access via brute force for example.

This in turn will commonly result in multiple script executions and will greatly increase the resource usage of the hosting account. Can also drive your traffic to other websites. And there are chances data is stolen if attack was for data.

While our WordPress maintenance Service implements a large set of additional security rules on your website to ensure you are protected.

But we aren’t that strict. So It is always good to have additional means of protection in order to avoid issues caused by such unauthorized access.

We recommend two approaches in this case, that proved to be most helpful:

• Add an additional plugin for your application that prevents such attacks. For example a nice option for WordPress is the Wordfence security plugin.
• Use a set of .htaccess rules that will prevent malicious requests towards your website. A good one that you can use out of the box for pretty much any general case is the 6G Firewall. You can find more information on its developer website. The exact rules you can add to your .htaccess are also included below:

# 6G FIREWALL/BLACKLIST
# @ https://perishablepress.com/6g/
 
# 6G:[QUERY STRING]
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (eval\() [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (127\.0\.0\.1) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ([a-z0-9]{2000,}) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (javascript:)(.*)(;) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (base64_encode)(.*)(\() [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (GLOBALS|REQUEST)(=|\[|%) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C)(.*)script(.*)(>|%3) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (\\|\.\.\.|\.\./|~|`|<|>|\|) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (boot\.ini|etc/passwd|self/environ) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (thumbs?(_editor|open)?|tim(thumb)?)\.php [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (\'|\")(.*)(drop|insert|md5|select|union) [NC]
	RewriteRule .* - [F]
</IfModule>
 
# 6G:[REQUEST METHOD]
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(connect|debug|move|put|trace|track) [NC]
	RewriteRule .* - [F]
</IfModule>
 
# 6G:[REFERRER]
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ([a-z0-9]{2000,}) [NC,OR]
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (semalt.com|todaperfeita) [NC]
	RewriteRule .* - [F]
</IfModule>
 
# 6G:[REQUEST STRING]
<IfModule mod_alias.c>
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)([a-z0-9]{2000,})
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(https?|ftp|php):/
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(base64_encode)(.*)(\()
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(=\\\'|=\\%27|/\\\'/?)\.
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)/(\$(\&)?|\*|\"|\.|,|&|&amp;?)/?$
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(\{0\}|\(/\(|\.\.\.|\+\+\+|\\\"\\\")
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(~|`|<|>|:|;|,|%|\\|\{|\}|\[|\]|\|)
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)/(=|\$&|_mm|cgi-|muieblack)
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)(&pws=0|_vti_|\(null\)|\{\$itemURL\}|echo(.*)kae|etc/passwd|eval\(|self/environ)
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)\.(aspx?|bash|bak?|cfg|cgi|dll|exe|git|hg|ini|jsp|log|mdb|out|sql|svn|swp|tar|rar|rdf)$
	RedirectMatch 403 (?i)/(^$|(wp-)?config|mobiquo|phpinfo|shell|sqlpatch|thumb|thumb_editor|thumbopen|timthumb|webshell)\.php
</IfModule>
 
# 6G:[USER AGENT]
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
	SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent ([a-z0-9]{2000,}) bad_bot
	SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent (archive.org|binlar|casper|checkpriv|choppy|clshttp|cmsworld|diavol|dotbot|extract|feedfinder|flicky|g00g1e|harvest|heritrix|httrack|kmccrew|loader|miner|nikto|nutch|planetwork|postrank|purebot|pycurl|python|seekerspider|siclab|skygrid|sqlmap|sucker|turnit|vikspider|winhttp|xxxyy|youda|zmeu|zune) bad_bot
	
	# Apache < 2.3
	<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
		Order Allow,Deny
		Allow from all
		Deny from env=bad_bot
	</IfModule>
 
	# Apache >= 2.3
	<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
		<RequireAll>
			Require all Granted
			Require not env bad_bot
		</RequireAll>
	</IfModule>
</IfModule>

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