prevent bruteforce with htaccess - .htaccess

Is there an opportunity to prevent bruteforce with htaccess authentification?
For example define a maximum number of trials?
This just showing how to deny access from a specific IP.

Related

Can hackers access my IP?

I have a website with a loose security admin area. Instead of fixing the many security holes that /admin page has, I kinda kept the hackers away by using htaccess:
deny from all
It didn't allow anyone to access /admin area. But I had to remove this condition any time I wanted to access the page. So, I used htaccess white list of IP's.
Now it looks like this:
<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 1xx.2xx.xxx.xxx
allow from 1xx.2xx.xxx.xxx
</Limit>
So, this way, my home and office IP's are whitelisted and other people (incl. hackers) will get a 403 error accessing /admin.
But now, I wonder if they can hack my computer and use my IP to access this forbidden page. Do you think hacker have this ability, or is my website totally safe now?
or is my website totally safe now
No, not a single website is totally safe, hackers are always one step in front of the defenders.
But it's a good start making it harder for the hackers to break into your site
A) please don't think that the only way in is through your PC
B) please don't think you are safe because no-one would do that
Both are incorrect. B) especially is a false sense of security. What you will find is that attackers who may gain access to your PC will have a look at what you do with it, and that will likely include accessing your web administration area. This doesn't even require much effort.
You should always use a decent authentication mechanism, and add IP whitelisting as an extra.

What is this file in .htaccess?

I am realy wonder why in .htaccess has those code bellow, can tell me what is this code?
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow, deny
allow from all
</Files>
deny from 212.92.53.18
It is not definitely malware.
At least, not in the sense it's intended for malicious reasons...
In the case you are using cpanel and you have used its IP Deny Manager to block access to 212.92.53.18 then this will automatically be written to your .htaccess file with the intended purpose of blocking that IP (and any others you may wish to enter):
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow, deny
allow from all
</Files>
deny from 212.92.53.18
Do you use cpanel and if so, do you remember doing that?
Allowing the 403 to All simply prevents a loop. If you block an IP using the 'deny from' method, then serving of the 403 to that IP would also get blocked, creating a loop. Allowing the specific 403 file to ALL, will override the block -- of serving the 403 to that specific IP -- that otherwise would have occurred. That prevents a loop.
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow, deny
allow from all
</Files>
I used it myself on an old domain. It simply says "allow anyone to access the file named 403.shtml"; which is the forbidden access error. Of course, you would use this usually if you created a custom 403.shtml page.
The denied IP in this case would not see the custom 403.shtml and instead would get a White-screen-of-death.
So this is not, in any way shape or form, malware related.
UPDATE: This answer was based on speculation using the facts provided when it was originally posted. The overall consensus seems to be this modification of the .htaccess file is most likely the result of using server management software such as CPanel so it’s not—on its own—an indication of malware infection.
The contents of that .htaccess are a bit odd.
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow, deny
allow from all
</Files>
deny from 212.92.53.18
The <Files 403.shtml> part refers to the 403.shtml file and it seems to be allowing a custom 403: Forbidden response (assumption based on file naming) .shtml file to be sent. The order allow, deny and related allow from all explain it to me. It seems like the site is blocking all traffic in some way but wants that 403.shtml to come through?
But the deny from 212.92.53.18 is quite specific & odd as a result. That is basically blocking any/all access from 212.92.53.18.
Now typing that out it seems like the .htaccess is set to explicitly deny access from address 212.92.53.18 which would send a 403 response code, and the <Files 403.shtml> allows the actual 403: Forbidden htaccess page to be sent?
But still, it seems odd for a directive to block traffic from one single IP address would be in an .htaccess file like that.
EDIT: Did a Google search for <Files 403.shtml>—because if you know Apache configs, that is a highly odd directive—and it seems like this might be part of some malware? Look at this page as well as this page and this other page.
Seems like this is part of a definite XSS backdoor? Perhaps the .htaccess is in a malware directory, and the deny from 212.92.53.18 is denying the infected server from accessing itself?
ANOTHER EDIT: Okay, putting on my thinking cap—as well as personal experience with web malware—and looking at the specificity of the deny from 212.92.53.18 I think I know what the deal is. This is part of a malware infection. But I bet that 212.92.53.18 is a node on a bonnet because you can curl -I it & visit it in a browser & it seems to be an active server. Most client IP addresses just won’t do that; who has a web server exposed on a basic ISP connection, right? Unless the machine is infected. So the 403.shtml is not actually a real 403: Forbidden page but actually part of the malware. Meaning, a connection being made FROM 212.92.53.18 would trigger 403.shtml—which is a server side include HTML file—that could be used for unauthorized access. I mean, when has anyone in 2014 last seen active .shtml files on legit servers, right? It’s all PHP, Python, Java or Ruby nowadays.
This?
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Files>
deny from xx.xx.xx.xx
Hacker? Backdoor? Malware? Ukraninian DOS attack?
Of course it IS NOT. It's nothing of the sort.
It is automatically generated by cPanel, when the "IP Blocker" is used.
cPanel writes it to your .htaccess file
The 'deny from' is simply the IP specified when using the cPanel IP Blocker tool. cPanel is clever enough to know a little more is needed than just a simple 'deny' IP4 entry.
Probably it's terrorific hack and malware. Ukraine/Russian/Indonesian hackers. On july 2016 they have attacked a lot of sites with Prestashop with a vulnerability on image file uploads. They upload that 403.shtml to the root and then they destroy the server and files. I have checked that my web is on their web page that inform hacked websites. They block some nights your access to the web with a DDOS attack to get the pass of mysql and ftp. In prestashop you have to upload urgent to 1.6.1.16 or upload some protection files. Unfortunately, I have do that, but they don't stop and try again blocking my webshop.
The only another option is that you put block ip on cpanel, but the trick is what Giacomo1968 says in their answer. Congratulations.

How could I redirect or deny users from a particular country with my htaccess file?

I looked at countryipblocks.net, and need to clarify...
If I want to block users from, say, Andorra from visiting my site, what exactly needs to be added to my (already existing) .htaccess file?
Do I need to simply add this block of text to my .htaccess?
<Limit GET HEAD POST>
order allow,deny
deny from 85.94.160.0/19
deny from 91.187.64.0/19
deny from 194.117.123.178/32
deny from 194.158.64.0/19
deny from 195.112.181.196/32
deny from 195.112.181.247/32
allow from all
</LIMIT>
On the other hand, if I want to redirect users from, say, Croatia, from http://mywebsite.com to http://google.com or a landing page, what exactly needs to be added to my .htaccess file?
Finally - how would "deny" appear to the user being denied access?
Thanks.
Visitors who are within a IP range that is banned by deny will be served with a 403 error. If you want to them to see a nice page, instead of the standard Apache error, then you will need something like
ErrorDocument 403 /errors/403.html
in your .htaccess file. It is fairly easy to check rules based on IP addresses are working in your .htaccess by setting the blocked IP to be 127.0.0.1 (i.e. localhost); when you then look at the page in question on localhost, you should see the result of the page being blocked.
In answer to your question about redirecting users, blocking all users from any 1 country seems a little bit overkill; however, try reading up on the RewriteCond directive.

using htaccess to restrict access on root when subdomains are also present

Consider the following structure:
example.com locates to public_html/index.php
example2.com locates to public_html/SUB/e2/index.php
I want to take example.com down for maintenance, and thought htaccess would be the best method. But then I became worried that doing so would block access to the second (unrelated) site, because to the server it is located within the first site.
Would an htaccess-driven block at example.com also kill off example2.com ?
Isnt there a thing like "priority" in htaccess files?
I mean e.g. you first block the access to "public_html"
and then allow access to "public_html/SUB/e2" etc. ?
Must work i think.

How do I redirect users that are not on my ip to a page rather than just an apache error page?

I want to take my website down for an hour while I make changes and I have used
order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from my.ip.add.ress
How do I redirect users that are not on my ip to a page rather than just given an bog standard apache error page? I want something prettier.
You can add this to your .htaccess:
ErrorDocument 403 /misc/403page.html
Then create a file called 403page.html in /misc (or whatever) and you're good to go. Make sure that /misc is outside of the document root for the site in question.
[EDIT AllowOverride will need to be set to FileInfo for this to work]

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