Secure wp-content/uploads in Linux Apache and Windows Server IIS
It’s recommended to disallow access to and execution of PHP files in wp-content/uploads folder. Preferably without the use of a security plugin. Blocking access to PHP files in WordPress wp-content/uploads folder is easily achieved with a .htaccess file on Linux Apache, or web.config accesssPolicy in Windows Server IIS, and here is how.
Basic Authentication managed HTTP module for IIS with virtual users support
In my pursuit of a basic authentication alternative in IIS, other than the built-in Basic Authentication module or Helicon Ape, I came across Devbridge AzurePowerTools. It’s apparently one of few HTTP managed modules for IIS that enables HTTP Basic Authentication with support for virtual users.
Read More »Basic Authentication module for Windows Server IIS The WordPress XML-RPC API has been under attack for many years now. Back in August 2014, WordPress released version 3.9.2, fixing a possible denial of service issue in PHP’s XML processing. There are brute-force amplification attacks, reported by Sucuri, and so on. So, how do you protect WordPress from xmlrpc.php attacks, but still being able to use (some of) its functionality like Jetpack? This post gives you some insight.
Read More »How to: Protect WordPress from brute-force XML-RPC attacks
Having an SSL certificate in your WordPress is the de-facto standard nowadays, did you know that? Google ranks sites having HTTPS higher in their SERP. But in WordPress, how do you configure an SSL certificate and HTTPS URL? You’ll learn the important steps to move WordPress from http to https in this post.
Read More »SSL in WordPress: how to move WordPress to HTTPS? The definitive guide
When you use iisnode to host the Node.js blogging software Ghost on your IIS web server, and you set up an SSL certificate for your Ghost website, you may run into too many redirect issues when changing Ghost’s config.js file. This happend to me yesterday, and here is the solution.
Jim Walker from HackRepair.com posted a 2016 version of his Bad Bots .htaccess on Pastebin. I offered Jim to translate his Bad Bots .htaccess to web.config, to be used with Windows Server IIS. And here it is, learn to protect your WordPress website with this web.config file!
How to fix the URL Rewrite Module error “Rewrite error: Expression contains a repeat expression” on Windows Server IIS.
Read More »IIS URL Rewrite “Rewrite Module error: Expression contains a repeat expression” Rewrite and proxy HTTP requests in IIS using a .htaccess
In my case scenario, I had to proxy requests in IIS, because a website was moved from web server A to B, and the DNS wasn’t updated yet. All HTTP requests for the moved website are handled in IIS’ Default Web Site; that’s the wildcard host, and the original host no longer existed there. We needed to match our website and proxy those requests to the new IIS web server. This can either be done using a proxy with URL Rewrite, IIS Application Request Routing (ARR), or a .htaccess file handled by Helicon Ape.
The Baidu spider (BaiduSpider user agent) can be a real pain to block, especially since it does not respect a robots.txt as it should. This post shows you how to block Baidu Spider bot, using IIS URL Rewrite Module based on its User-Agent string.
Read More »How to block BaiduSpider bot User-Agent? Do you host your WordPress website on Windows Server IIS? And are you having trouble with your web.config? I often receive questions about how to use a web.config file in WordPress on Windows Server, and which settings are important for a WordPress site. Maybe it’s because I’m a WordPress on Windows Server IIS enthusiast, so here is my web.config for your convenience (really, it’s not that special).
Read More »My WordPress web.config
Set up HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) in Windows Server IIS. Scott Hanselman wrote a great post on how to enable HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) on IIS web servers, and here is some more technical information about HSTS in IIS, and other security headers…
Read More »How to enable HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) on IIS Deny direct access to PHP files in wp-content/uploads/
The following PHP function secures your WordPress website by disabling the execution of PHP scripts in wp-content/uploads, on Windows Server IIS web servers. It creates a web.config file for this purpose.
In this post I provide you various HTTP to HTTPS redirection methods, for Windows Server IIS and Linux Apache. Use these examples to your advantage to secure the traffic between your visitors and your website.
Read More »Redirect HTTP to HTTPS WordPress xmlprc.php DDoS and brute-force attacks. How to identify, block, mitigate and leverage these xmlrpc.php scans, brute-force, and user enumeration attacks on WordPress sites… Secure WordPress xmlprc.php interface and reduce service disruption.
Read More »Huge increase in WordPress xmlrpc.php POST requests
Remove HTTP response headers in Windows Server IIS 10 and ASP.NET
Windows Server IIS loves to tell the world that a website runs on IIS. It does so with the Server header in the HTTP response, as shown below. In this post I’ll show you how to remove response server headers in IIS. You don’t want to give hackers too much information about your servers, heh? ;-).
Read More »Remove IIS Server version HTTP Response Header