If you have a PHP application that uses XML-RPC, you may consider blocking xmlrpc.php requests to help with your website performance and resource usage.
WordPress uses this interface via /xmlrpc.php.
You can see the complete URL by visiting https://webcomm.dev/xmlrpc.php where "webcomm.dev" is the name of your domain.
This feature enables data to be transmitted, with HTTP acting as the transport mechanism and XML as the encoding mechanism.
The thing is that this can be maliciously used to cause your domain to respond slowly or cause it not to respond at all.
This is done by brute-forcing the file which causes the website to slow as it tries to respond with all the pingbacks and trackbacks.
ModSecurity is a web application firewall (WAF) that helps with common web-based attacks like SQL injections, DOS, and other kinds of common HTTP attacks.
We use ModSecurity (along with other security tools) to mitigate against such attacks.
So you are protected.
But you can take the step further and do more to help protect your website/application better.
You can do this by disabling the requests via your .htaccess.
- First, log in to your cPanel account.
- Find the Files section and click on File Manager.
This will take you to your account's public_html (or your website content's document root).
- Edit .htaccess or create a new file called .htaccess.
- Paste the following code into the file:
# Block xmlrpc.php requests Require all denied Require ip $xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(visit https://cdn.webhostingmagic.com/knowledgebase/disallow_xmlrpc.txt to download the complete rule as plain text)
- If you want to allow XML-RPC requests from a particular IP, then replace $xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP address.
- Save and close the file.
While we try to encourage customers to use fewer plugins instead of more, you may opt to use such an option if you are running WordPress.
To do that, log in to your wp-admin.
- Visit the Plugins >> Add New section.
- Search for Disable XML-RPC.
- Install the plugin.
