Title: Blocking normal requests?
Last modified: January 20, 2019

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# Blocking normal requests?

 *  [digbymaass](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digbymaass/)
 * (@digbymaass)
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/)
 * The security log shows a lot of apparently normal requests (from local non spammy
   addresses) are being blocked. I have no idea why. Can you shed any light?
    eg:
 * > [403 GET Request: January 20, 2019 – 1:24 am]
   >  BPS: 3.2 WP: 5.0.3 Event Code:
   > BFHS – Blocked/Forbidden Hacker or Spammer Solution: N/A – Hacker/Spammer Blocked/
   > Forbidden REMOTE_ADDR: 87.74.227.66 Host Name: 87.74.227.66 SERVER_PROTOCOL:
   > HTTP/1.1 HTTP_CLIENT_IP: HTTP_FORWARDED: HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR: HTTP_X_CLUSTER_CLIENT_IP:
   > REQUEST_METHOD: GET HTTP_REFERER: [https://www.google.co.uk/](https://www.google.co.uk/)
   > REQUEST_URI: /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/005.jpg?x97005 QUERY_STRING: x97005
   > HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 12_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/
   > 605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/12.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
 * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fblocking-normal-requests%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US)
   to see the link]_

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  Thread Starter [digbymaass](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digbymaass/)
 * (@digbymaass)
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/#post-11109537)
 * I wonder if it’s to do with trying to block image hotlinking. I had this in htaccess
   for 24 hours (currently removed), which didn’t appear to be working according
   to various checker sites and inurl:carnethy.com -site:carnethy.com.
 *     ```
       # Prevent image hotlinking in WordPress
       RewriteEngine on
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://carnethy.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?facebook.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?twitter.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yahoo.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?bing.com(/.*)?$ [NC]
       RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}  !^/clansman-no-hotlink\.jpg$ [NC]
       RewriteRule \.([Jj][Pp][Gg]|[Jj][Pp][Ee][Gg]|gif|[Pp][Dd][Ff]|[Pp][Nn][Gg])$ - [F]  http://carnethy.com/clansman-no-hotlink.jpg [NC,R,L]
       ```
   
 * Not sure if the syntax is correct.
 *  Plugin Author [AITpro](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aitpro/)
 * (@aitpro)
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/#post-11113936)
 * Yep, you are correct that your hotlinking code is blocking the jpg image file
   retrieval.
 * This syntax/code is not correct: `RewriteRule \.([Jj][Pp][Gg]|[Jj][Pp][Ee][Gg]
   |gif|[Pp][Dd][Ff]|[Pp][Nn][Gg])$ - [F] http://carnethy.com/clansman-no-hotlink.
   jpg [NC,R,L]`
 * We created some hotlink protection htaccess code here if you would like to use
   this hotlink protection code instead > [https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/hotlink-protection-do-not-block-google-bing-or-yahoo/](https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/hotlink-protection-do-not-block-google-bing-or-yahoo/)
 *  Plugin Author [AITpro](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aitpro/)
 * (@aitpro)
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/#post-11150124)
 * Is the issue/problem still occurring or is it resolved?
 *  Thread Starter [digbymaass](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digbymaass/)
 * (@digbymaass)
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/#post-11150219)
 * For the moment I’ve removed the code and I’m postponing tackling the issue. Thanks.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [digbymaass](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digbymaass/)
 * Last activity: [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/blocking-normal-requests/#post-11150219)
 * Status: not resolved