security

Block SPAM IPs Automatically & Permanently

The upcoming update for the All In One WP Security and Firewall plugin is due any moment now and I wanted to share with you the details of a new feature I’ve been working on which will aid in greatly decreasing the number of spammers visiting your site.

The new feature is called Auto Block SPAMMER IPs and in a nutshell it allows you to automatically and permanently block IP addresses which have submitted more than a certain number of “SPAM” comments.

When an IP address has been blocked by this feature it effectively means that the visitor with that particular IP address will never be able to see the content of your site.

The beauty of this security feature is that it works in tandem with things like Akismet and any other plugin which has the ability to mark or classify a wordpress comment as “spam”.

This feature is also compatible with any server type running WordPress because it does not use .htaccess to block the IP addresses.

When activated, the Auto Block SPAMMER IPs feature will constantly monitor comments which have been marked as SPAM and it will automatically block the IP address which was used to make that comment if the number of “spam” comments exceeds the configured amount.

This feature’s settings can be found by going to WP Security->SPAM Prevention and then clicking on the tab called “Comment SPAM IP Monitoring“.

As you can see from the figure above, the settings are straightforward. All you need to do is click the check box to enable this feature and then set the minimum number of spam comments before an IP address is blocked permanently. So in the above case, I’ve got minimum number of SPAM comments set to “5” which means if a spammer leaves more than 4 spam comments their IP address will be permanently blocked from my site.

You will also note the handy summary box which shows you the current day’s number of IP addresses which were blocked by this feature and also the all-time total amount of IP addresses blocked due to spam. You can also click on the “View Blocked IPs” button to see a list of the IPs which have been permanently blocked as shown in the figure below.

Of course sometimes there may occasions where you might want to unblock an IP address or group of addresses which were permanently blocked by this feature. You can do that easily by either hovering over the ID of the blocked entry or using the checkboxes and “Bulk Actions” menu of the “Permanently Blocked IP Addresses” table. (see figure below)

The Auto Block SPAMMER IPs feature will be a useful tool for combating spammers and other pests who aim to deface your site with useless spam.

This feature will be available in the next version of the All In One WP Security and Firewall plugin which will be released very soon!

New White-list Feature For Country Blocking Addon

A new version of the AIOWPS Country Blocking Addon (which I wrote about in another post) has just been released.

In case you aren’t already familiar with it, the Country blocking Addon is a Wordpress plugin which adds to the functionality of our All In One WP Security and Firewall plugin.

This latest release has a new useful feature which allows you to white-list certain IP addresses or IP address ranges even if they come from a blocked country.

The country blocking white-list feature gives you more control over who you can block and who you wish to allow through to your site by providing you with the finer granularity of white-listing certain IP addresses or whole blocks of IP ranges.

The white-list feature is also very easy to use – simply enable the feature using the checkbox and enter the IP addresses in the text box and save it. Then the plugin will take care of everything else for you automatically.

Example 1:
Let’s say you have selected to block Ukraine in the “General Settings” of the country blocking addon, but you wish to allow one IP address from this country (217.77.250.207). You would enable whitelisting and simply enter this IP address in the white list address box and save the settings.

Example 2:
Let’s say you have selected to block Ukraine in the “General Settings” of the country blocking addon, but you wish to allow a block of IP addresses from this country (217.77.250.*). You would enable whitelisting and simply enter 217.77.250.* in the white list address box and save the settings.

So if you have a website which has certain requirements such as only allowing certain countries to access it then the country blocking addon is a plugin which you will find extremely useful.

Country Blocking WordPress Plugin

Do you have a website which gets inundated with SPAM or hacking attempts from visitors or bots originating from certain countries?

To help put a stop to this you could ordinarily use the “blacklist” feature of the All In One WP Security and Firewall plugin to block visitors via specific IP addresses or IP ranges. This is a good solution but keep in mind that you may have to repeatedly keep adding IP addresses to the blacklist as you discover more spammers and hackers using different IP addresses.

However, if you wanted more precision and control over the IP addresses you want to block, you could add further granularity by specifying the country from which you want to block the IP addresses.

To achieve this you need an accurate way to resolve an IP address to the country of origin and this is exactly what we’ve done with our latest offering.

[Read more…]

Malware and its effects on your website

Your website is like a “virtual” version of a piece of property or business where you have invested a lot of work over the months and years, and just like any real “bricks and mortar” property and investment you should always try to protect the contents inside of it.

For example, let’s say you owned a “real” camera shop in the city. If you are a smart business person, you would do all of the necessary due diligence to protect your investment such as installing burglar alarms, locks and taking other security measures and also even getting insurance for your business.

Similar security and insurance measures should also apply to your website.

One of the most common downfalls of websites is poor security which usually results in the infection of the site contents with malware and other malicious scripts.

What is Malware?

The word malware is an abbreviation for “Malicious Software”.

In a nutshell it is basically a malicious script or piece of hostile code which is secretly injected into your site’s webpage files.

Other common security threats which can also fit under the “malware” name include things such as adware, worms, spyware, trojan horses etc.

Just as your computer can be infected by a virus, the same thing can happen to your website.

The injection of such undesirable and hostile code such as the types mentioned above, can occur in such a way that you may not notice that your precious site has been compromised until days, weeks or even months later.

When a hacker inserts their malware script into some of your files, they will usually do it in a way that is sometimes difficult to detect for the untrained eye…..and sometimes even the trained eye because new hacking techniques are being developed each day.

Hackers normally do this because they want to take advantage of your site’s real-estate and traffic by inserting links which point to their porn or pharmacy or other scam websites.

The Effects Of Malware

When a website has been infected with malware the effects can range from disastrous things like financial ruin, and secret and personal data theft, to relatively minor and annoying things such as a rogue link or popup window.

If left unresolved, the malware on your website can become a real liability no matter how benign it may seem at first. This is because big search engine companies such as Google, Bing etc and also malware watchdog sites can often detect via their web crawlers if your site is infected with malware, and they can consequently blacklist your site in order to protect their search customers.

If your site is blacklisted it can have a detrimental effect on the traffic rate coming to your site from search engines, which will in turn manifest itself into disastrous financial effects on your business. A blacklisted site usually means it will be flagged by search engines whenever a visitor tries to browse your site.

For example, if you have been blacklisted say by Google Safe Browsing, every visitor trying to reach your website will usually see a warning similar to that below.

You can minimize the damage if you act quickly

If your site does happen to be hacked and consequently infected with malware, the important thing is to take action to clean up your site as soon as possible so you can minimize the damage done – especially the negative effects to your site’s ranking, traffic rate and income generation.

An easy way to keep informed of your site’s malware status and help guard against the loss of traffic, rankings and money is to scan your site daily against malware threats and other suspicious code.

Daily Malware Scanning Of Your Website Is a Must If You Want To Protect Your Investment

Scanning your website at least once daily for malware is like having a burgler alarm for your site. Due to the fact that hackers are always coming up with new and sneaky ways to compromise websites, you need a way to quickly detect any malware intrusion which may have occurred on your site so you can address the problem quickly.

Fortunately Site Scanners provide an easy-to-use service which will scan your site every day for the latest malware threats and in addition to that it will also notify you automatically if any malware is found so that you can address the problem immediately.

All you need to do once you’ve signed up, is to log into your dashboard and enter your site’s URL. That’s it! From then on, Site Scanners will have your back as far as malware scanning and notifications go.

If after a daily scan Site Scanners find that your site is infected with malware or other malicious code, they will immediately send you an email which will looks something like the following:

A notification email will be sent to you if malware is found

You can also view more details by logging into your dashboard as shown below.

The dashboard will show you any malware infection warnings and you can also click on the details button to view specific details about the malware as shown in the example below:

As well as scanning your site for malware and suspicious software, the site scanners service will also check your site if it has been blacklisted by one of the main search engines. This will allow you to take steps to remove your site from any blacklists ASAP so that your ranking and traffic doesn’t slip too low.

Such peace of mind is worth its weight in gold as far as your website and business is concerned and the cost to you is peanuts when you think about it – less than $7 a month for a daily scan.

You can find out more about the malware scanning service by going to Site Scanners website.