How to Block Bad Bots and Vulnerability Scanners on WordPress

The Bot Problem

Over 40% of all internet traffic comes from bots—and more than half of that is malicious. Your WordPress site is constantly being scanned, probed, and attacked by automated programs searching for vulnerabilities. These bots waste your server resources, skew your analytics, and pose serious security risks when they find exploitable weaknesses.

Types of Malicious Bots

Vulnerability Scanners

Tools like Nikto, WPScan, SQLMap, and Nmap automatically probe thousands of sites for known vulnerabilities. They check for outdated plugins, default credentials, and common misconfigurations.

Credential Stuffing Bots

These bots try stolen username/password combinations from data breaches, hoping you reuse passwords across services.

Content Scrapers

Aggressive bots that copy your content for spam sites, often making hundreds of requests per minute.

SEO Crawlers

While some (Googlebot) are legitimate, others like AhrefsBot, SemrushBot, and MJ12bot can be excessive, consuming significant server resources.

Spam Bots

Automated programs that submit spam through comments, contact forms, and registration pages.

DDoS Bots

Botnets that flood your site with traffic to take it offline.

Identifying Bad Bots

User Agent Analysis

Many bots identify themselves through their User-Agent string. Vulnerability scanners often use signatures like "Nikto", "sqlmap", or "masscan".

Request Patterns

Bots often exhibit telltale patterns:

• Extremely high request rates
• Accessing non-existent pages systematically
• Requesting sensitive files (wp-config.php, .htaccess)
• Sequential crawling of author IDs (?author=1, ?author=2, etc.)
• Probing for common vulnerabilities

IP Reputation

Many malicious bots come from known bad IP ranges, VPNs, or cloud hosting commonly used for attacks.

Common Bad Bots to Block

Vulnerability Scanners

• Nikto, Nmap, Masscan, ZGrab
• SQLMap, WPScan, Acunetix
• Nessus, OpenVAS, Qualys

Aggressive SEO Bots

• AhrefsBot, SemrushBot, MJ12bot
• DotBot, BLEXBot, SeznamBot

AI Scrapers (Optional)

• GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot
• Anthropic-AI, Google-Extended

How WP Folder Shield Blocks Bad Bots

WP Folder Shield includes comprehensive bot blocking in its firewall:

User Agent Blocking

The firewall maintains a database of 20+ known malicious bot signatures and blocks them instantly. This includes vulnerability scanners, aggressive crawlers, and known spam bots.

Empty User Agent Option

Legitimate browsers always send a User-Agent. You can optionally block requests with empty User-Agents, which are often automated scripts.

Behavior Detection

The firewall identifies bot-like behavior patterns and can automatically block IPs exhibiting suspicious activity.

Rate Limiting

Legitimate users don't make hundreds of requests per minute. Rate limiting stops aggressive bots without affecting real visitors.

Threat Intelligence

WP Folder Shield's threat intelligence network shares known bot IPs across all protected sites. When one site identifies a malicious bot, all sites are protected.

Real-Time Logging

Monitor blocked bots in the Live Traffic Monitor to see exactly what's hitting your site and what's being blocked.

Configuration Options

WP Folder Shield gives you control over bot blocking:

• Enable/disable specific bot categories
• Add custom User-Agent patterns to block
• Whitelist legitimate bots that get flagged
• Configure rate limits per IP
• Set up alerts for bot attacks

Keeping Legitimate Bots

Not all bots are bad. You want to keep:

• Googlebot - For search indexing
• Bingbot - Microsoft search
• Monitoring Services - Uptime monitors you use
• Your Own Integrations - APIs and webhooks

WP Folder Shield automatically whitelists major search engine bots while blocking malicious ones.

The Impact of Bot Blocking

Sites using WP Folder Shield's bot blocking typically see:

• 40-60% reduction in server resource usage
• Cleaner analytics with real visitor data
• Fewer brute force and vulnerability scan attempts
• Reduced bandwidth costs
• Better site performance for real users

Conclusion

Malicious bots are a constant threat to WordPress sites, consuming resources and probing for vulnerabilities. WP Folder Shield's comprehensive bot blocking protects your site from scanners, scrapers, and spam bots while ensuring legitimate search engines and visitors can access your content. Enable bot blocking today and stop wasting resources on bad traffic.