Advanced IP Blocker

Advanced IP Blocker is your all-in-one security solution to safeguard your WordPress website from a wide range of threats. This plugin provides a comprehensive suite of tools to automatically detect and block malicious activity, including brute-force attacks, vulnerability scanning, and spam bots. With its intuitive and newly redesigned interface, you can easily manage whitelists, blocklists, and view detailed security logs to understand exactly how your site is being protected.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced administrator, Advanced IP Blocker gives you the control you need to secure your digital presence.

Key Features:

• Security Dashboard: Get a real-time, visual overview of threats with interactive charts for attack summaries, a threat timeline, and a live, clustered attack map.
• IP Trust & Threat Scoring System: An advanced, intelligent defense layer that moves beyond simple thresholds. It assigns threat points to IPs for various malicious actions (404s, WAF triggers, etc.). IPs are only blocked upon reaching a configurable score, resulting in more accurate, context-aware blocking and fewer false positives. Features an automatic score decay system to “forgive” IPs over time.
• Web Application Firewall (WAF): Proactively block malicious requests (SQLi, XSS, LFI) with a customizable ruleset and a URL exclusion system to ensure compatibility with payment gateways.
• Request Rate Limiting: Automatically prevent DoS attacks and brute-force attempts by temporarily blocking IPs that make too many requests.
• Granular ASN Blocking: Block entire networks by blacklisting Autonomous System Numbers (ASN). Now with separate controls for the automated Spamhaus DROP list and your own manual blocklist.
• Country Blocking (Geoblocking): Easily block traffic from entire countries with a user-friendly selector and smart warnings to prevent lockouts.
• Threshold-Based Blocking: Automatically block IPs based on configurable thresholds for 404 errors, 403 errors, and failed login attempts.
• Advanced Login Protection: Harden your login page with intelligent “Smart” XML-RPC protection that verifies traffic from Automattic’s official network (ASN verification). Also includes options to disable user enumeration and restrict access to whitelisted IPs only.
• Push Notifications (Webhooks): Receive instant, detailed security alerts on modern platforms like Slack and Discord, keeping you informed of critical events in real-time.
• Google reCAPTCHA Integration: Shield your login and registration forms from bots by integrating Google reCAPTCHA (v2 & v3).
• Honeypot & User-Agent Traps: Instantly ban bots and scanners that access decoy URLs or use malicious User-Agent strings.
• Live Security Feed Shortcode: Display a real-time, terminal-style feed of block events on any page or post using the [advaipbl_live_feed] shortcode.
• Active User Session Management: View all logged-in users in real-time, see their location, and terminate their sessions remotely.
• Full WP-CLI Support: Manage every aspect of the plugin via the command line, ideal for developers and system administrators.
• Detailed Event Logging: Track all security events with detailed, sortable, and filterable logs. Now with even more context, like the source of an ASN block and the URI of the attack.

This plugin gives you the power to see who is trying to access your site and to stop threats before they become a problem.

Recommended Setup

For optimal protection, follow these steps after installation:

1. Navigate to the Plugin: Find the new “Security” menu item in your WordPress admin menu.
2. Whitelist Your IPs: Go to Settings > Status & Debug and use the one-click buttons to add your current IP and your server’s IP to the whitelist. This is the most important step to prevent accidental lockouts.
3. Activate Core Defenses: Go to Blocking Rules > User Agents, copy the suggested list of malicious bots, and paste it into the blocklist. Then, go to Blocking Rules > Honeypot URLs and do the same. Click “Save” on each page.
4. Enable WAF & Rate Limiting: Go to Settings > General and enable the “Web Application Firewall” and “Request Rate Limiting” options for proactive protection.
5. Review Login Protection: Navigate to Settings > General. We recommend keeping Disable User Enumeration and Prevent author scans enabled. Also, consider enabling Disable XML-RPC for maximum security (read the FAQ first if you use Jetpack or the mobile app).
6. Enable Notifications: In the Email Notifications section on the Settings tab, enable notifications to receive alerts or daily/weekly security summaries.

That’s it! Your plugin is now actively configured to block a wide range of common automated attacks.

Compatibility with Other Security Plugins

Can I use Advanced IP Blocker with other security plugins like Wordfence, iThemes Security, etc.?
Yes, in most cases. Our plugin is designed to be a focused firewall and can complement larger security suites. However, to avoid conflicts, please follow these guidelines:
Choose One Login Protection: Do not enable reCAPTCHA, “Whitelist Login Access”, or other login form protections in more than one plugin at a time. Choose which plugin you want to handle login security and disable those features in the other.
Check Your Whitelist: Always ensure your server’s IP address is on our whitelist (Status & Debug tab). This prevents our plugin from blocking internal scans performed by other security tools.
XML-RPC: If you use another plugin to manage XML-RPC, disable the “Disable XML-RPC” option in our plugin to avoid conflicts.
In general, features like IP/Country blocking, Honeypots, and User-Agent blocking can run alongside other plugins without issue.