Is your IP address in my WordPress .htaccess block list? Here are IP addresses I block manually because of comment spamming.
Tag: WordPress

Find vulnerable WordPress plugin versions fast using PowerShell
On a daily bases, new vulnerabilities are found in WordPress plugins. And when you host thousands of WordPress sites, you can count on the fact you have some customers using that vulnerable version of that particular plugin. So you need to find those vulnerable versions on your servers fast. On Windows Server, PowerShell is a perfect tool for the job!

Disallow direct access to PHP files in wp-content/uploads/
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. Secure your WordPress site with this simple, yet effective, tip!

WordPress .htaccess security best practices in Apache 2.4.6+
Apache Access Control done right in WordPress .htaccess, ‘Allow/Deny from all’ versus ‘Require All Granted/Denied’. Since Apache 2.4.6, a new module is used to configure and set up access control for websites: mod_authz_core. This means you have to use a different syntax for allowing or blocking hosts and IP addresses to your website. But unfortunately, old documentation is never updated and people even still write blog posts using that old syntax, leaving you with an unprotected website. Not what you had in mind, now is it?
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: [] operator not supported for strings – PHP 7.1
With PHP 7.1, some PHP web applications fail because of deprecated code usage. This may result in an error message like [] operator not supported for strings for various Joomla, WordPress and Drupal components. Here’s how to fix this code for PHP 7.1+.

Protect WordPress from brute-force XML-RPC attacks
The WordPress XML-RPC API has been under attack for many years. 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 these xmlrpc.php attacks, optionally still being able to use (some of) its functionality like Jetpack? This post gives you some insights.
How to make Twenty Seventeen theme full width in WordPress
The default WordPress theme Twenty Seventeen’s content width can be easily changed to full width. All you need is this bit of CSS:How to make Twenty Seventeen theme full width in WordPress

Check WordPress Core files integrity
Learn the importance of checking and verifying WordPress Core files md5 checksums against WordPress’ checksums API, using this standalone PHP file. WordPress integrity matters and therefore I chose to use a standalone PHP script to check the md5sum of WordPress Core files against the API. Doing os makes you’re not dependent on a possibly hacked WordPress installation. This kind of guarantees the result can be trusted, as opposed to using a WordPress plugin. I think this is a better integrity check of WordPress Core files.

WordPress advisory: Akal premium theme XSS vulnerability
This post describes the Akal premium WordPress theme XSS vulnerability that I discovered. The theme suffers from a reflected Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability that would allow an attacker to steal an admin’s cookie, if WordPress wasn’t secured against that type of attacks.
HackRepair.com’s Bad Bots .htaccess in web.config for IIS
Block bad bots in WIndows Server IIS using web.config. Learn to protect your WordPress website with this web.config file!

Deny vulnerable WordPress plugins using Windows Server File Server Resource Manager’s File Screens
Using Windows Server File Server Resource Manager’s File Screens you can block vulnerable WordPress plugins from being uploaded to your IIS web server. In the following example, you’ll learn how to block WP DB Backup plugin system-wide on Windows Server, read on

Install Elasticsearch on CentOS 6.7
Elasticsearch is a highly scalable open-source full-text search and analytics engine. It allows you to store, search, and analyze big volumes of data quickly and in near real time. In this article we’ll go over the steps to install Elasticsearch on CentOS 6.7.
Add a delay to your WordPress login form
This plugin adds a three second delay when logging into WordPress. This slows down brute-force attacks on your website. However, it is not recommended to use sleep(), because a heavy brute-force attack will let all those POST requests sleep for the given amount of time.

Sysadmins of the North goes global!
How to set up a global Geolocation DNS load balancing Varnish Cache Content Delivery Network with Bind9, geo-ip database, Varnish Cache and DigitalOcean. DIY High-Availability for your website!
How to string replace on all WordPress posts in MySQL
Replace all instances of a string in WordPress using phpMyAdmin and SQL statements, or a WordPress plugin. Learn how to replace content in your MySQL database in bulk with MySQL REPLACE.