Block Malicious IPs With AntiBot Global Firewall

Our new feature keeps your site safer, by blocking dangerous traffic before it can harm your site.

📢 Introducing: AntiBot Global Firewall 🔥🧱

It’s a sophisticated automated security service that blocks harmful bots and suspicious IPs, protecting your site from threats. It’s proactive protection that gives you peace of mind.

This means you’ll be protected from any moustache-twirling bad actors and creepy bots that could cause issues with your systems. Just think of it as a bouncer for your website – if they’re on the blocklist, they’re not getting in!

Why is AntiBot Important?

AntiBot is an essential tool that protects your website and your users from a host of nasty threats. Here’s how it helps:

• Keeps Your Site Up and Running: By blocking bad bots, AntiBot avoids strain on your server which means you’ll enjoy faster loading time and a better experience for your visitors.
• Safeguards Your Content: You won’t have to worry about bots scraping your content or stealing your bandwidth.
• Always Running in the Background: With AntiBot, you’ll have 24/7 protection from suspicious activity on your website so you can focus on what matters most: creating great content and growing your audience.

How it Works

The AntiBot Global Firewall analyzes traffic patterns and threat data from a vast network of over 250,000 websites. Our global threat detection network analyzes hundreds of thousands of threats daily, including approximately 500,000 suspicious IPs every day.

This extensive analysis allows AntiBot to proactively adapt to new and emerging threats, generating a blocklist of over 50,000 harmful IPs daily. This blocklist is automatically updated every 12 hours, ensuring your website stays protected against the latest threats.

How do we know these IPs are bad news? Well, we mark them as suspicious based on behaviors, like failed login attempts, accessing not found pages, attempts to access XML-RPC, triggering HTTP authentication, spam comments and more.

This list of blocked IPs is sent to all users with a Free Hub Membership, or any of the Pro plans with Defender Active, and WPMU DEV hosted sites.

The blocklist is updated every 12 hours, to make sure your sites are always protected in real time. Plus, all blocked IP addresses are reviewed every 7 days for suspicious activity. This makes sure that the block list is always up-to-date and accurate.

Want to see AntiBot in Action? Visit this page to see a real-time update on the threats we’ve already blocked today.

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AntiBot Modes: Choose Your Level of Protection

AntiBot Global Firewall allows you to choose the level at which suspicious traffic is blocked on your website. There are two different modes you can use, Basic, and Strict.

Basic: This is your default everyday level of protection, allowing safe bots and tools like uptime monitors or SEO scanners to access your site. It won’t crack down on visitors with minor issues, such as 404 errors.

Strict: This is your site on serious lockdown. Any suspicious activity shall not pass, including visits with broken links.

Each mode offers a different level of protection depending on your situation, and you can toggle between the modes when you need to.

Important FAQs

What’s the difference between a Local Firewall and AntiBot Global Firewall?

A local firewall is a valuable tool, but it only reacts to pre-set rules you manually configure. For example, you can set it to block an IP after a threshold of failed login attempts or 404 errors.

This approach has limitations. It focuses only on your individual website and lacks the broader perspective of what IPs are doing on other websites. It’s like having one security guard at the entrance of your website, who has been instructed only to watch out for suspicious individuals who match a specific description. The guard will be good at keeping out troublemakers known to you, but they might miss someone unfamiliar or mistakenly turn away a friendly guest.

In contrast, AntiBot Global Firewall is a “set it and forget it” solution that doesn’t require manual configuration. It means you’ll have a wider, global scope. You won’t have to wait for a malicious IP to hit a threshold before it’s blocked on your site. If the IP is flagged for malicious activity anywhere on our vast threat detection network, it will be automatically blocked from the first visit.

It’s like having a network of highly trained security agents stationed all over the world. They can coordinate their efforts and share information about suspicious individuals. If someone is flagged as a threat in one location, all agents will be immediately alerted, and that person will be prevented from entering any protected site, including yours.

This proactive and interconnected approach offers far greater protection and peace of mind.

Does AntiBot protect against DDoS attacks?

If your AntiBot mode is set to Strict, you’ll be fully protected from DDoS attacks.

On Strict Mode, AntiBot will stop hackers in their tracks if they are attempting to launch a DDoS attack to crash your server, trying to brute-force their way into your login page or spamming your comments section with malicious links.

The level of protection depends on your setup. WPMU DEV hosting users will get server-level blocking, which means malicious traffic will be stopped before it even reaches your website. This prevents your site from being overwhelmed, while keeping your server resources free.

Defender plugin users get plugin-level protection, meaning AntiBot filters bad traffic once it arrives at your server. This helps to mitigate the attack, but it may still consume some server resources.

Both offer valuable protect, but the level of defense varies. Think of it this way: AntiBot on WPMU DEV hosting is like a fortress wall, keeping invaders out completely. AntiBot with the Defender plugin is like having a security team inside your site, dealing with threats that have already breached the perimeter.

Is this feature paid or free?

This feature is completely free! After installing the Defender plugin all you need to do is sign up with WPMU DEV and connect your site.

If your site is hosted on WPMU DEV, it can be activated directly from the Hub or the Defender plugin.

Can I check if an IP is blocked by the service?

Yes! You can see if a specific IP is on the blocklist by using the IP Checker Tool in the HUB or the Defender Plugin.

What if a legitimate visitor is blocked by AntiBot?

You can enable the “Unlock Me” feature from the Defender Plugin settings.

When this feature is turned on and a visitor is mistakenly blocked by AntiBot, they can click “Unlock Me” on the block page to regain access.

To make sure that this unlock feature isn’t abused by bots, we’ve integrated with Altcha invisible captcha. Altcha uses clever tech that tells humans and bots apart by asking for a tiny bit of work that’s easy for a human but difficult for a bot.

All this happens without your site visitor even noticing – all they have to do is click the “Unlock Me” button.

Can I add specific IPs to my site’s Allowlist?

Yes! If your site is hosted on WPMU DEV, you can add IPs directly to the Central IP Allowlist through the HUB.

If your site is hosted on a third-party server, you can add IPs to either the plugin’s local Allowlist or the Central IP Allowlist on the Hub.

How do I add a trusted IP address to the AntiBot Global Firewall Service?

If there’s a legitimate service’s IP on the blocklist, such as an SEO tool or a search engine crawler, you can use the “Report as Trusted IP” option in the HUB or the Defender Plugin.

Our team will review the request and decide whether to add the IP to the service Allowlist. If it’s approved, you’ll receive a confirmation email.

How to Get Started With AntiBot Global Firewall

All you need to do to enjoy AntiBot Global Firewall protection is to enable AntiBot on your site. It’ll automatically start fetching suspicious IPs and it will update the blocklist every 12 hours.

If your site is hosted on WPMU DEV, you can enable AntiBot directly at the server level, without needing the Defender plugin.

If your site is hosted on a third-party server, you’ll need the Defender plugin to enable AntiBot for free.

The Defender plugin also offers other essential features like two-factor authentication, malware scanning and advanced threat detection. You can check out the free version of Defender here, and the Pro version here.

Any questions about AntiBot Global Firewall? Just let us know in the comments below. We’re happy to help!