ThreatPoint IP Reputation

This plugin protects WordPress Sites from unwanted malicious access attempts by leveraging IP reputation data provided by the ThreatPoint IP reputation service.

External Service

This plugin allows administrators to protect their WordPress Sites from unwanted access attempts by leveraging IP reputation data provided by the ThreatPoint IP reputation service. This plugin invokes a restAPI call to the ThreatPoint API, consumes the response and acts based on configuration options in the plugin. This allows ip reputation data to be placed in front of pages (wp-admin and custom pages for example) – without interrupting normal access.
To communicate with the restAPI an API KEY is required from ThreatPoint.

The plugin calls the rest API (requires an API KEY) at this ThreatPoint api endpoint
The rest API is only passed the IP address from the client or X-Forwarded-For address(es) is present.
This external service is called during any login attempts to the admin page. The plugin allows any page to be protected by simply entering the slug name on the setting page in the correct field (comma separated). Any custom page can be protected in this manner.
An API key is required to utilise the service, although the plugin will operate without one it will not be able to pass the IP or call any data from the API. Your pages are NOT protected without a valid API key.

Privacy Policy

The privacy policy for the api services is viewable here privacy policy
This plugin only passes IP information – no other PII is transferred. The IP address is analysed across the aggregated data within the ThreatPoint IP reputation service and a risk score with geo location information is returned to the plugin. Simple rules within the plugin dictate whether traffic should be allowed to continue as normal or be redirected to an information URL of your choice (set by through the plugin settings). The IP address is stored in the IP aggregated data and used as part of the consortium. No other data such as originating website is stored. Only the IP address and geo location information is held, with date, time and risk scores associated with the request.

Plugin Features

• Detects activity and IP reputation from the following sources:
• Tor exit node traffic
• Proxy (paid)
• Proxy (free)
• VPN (paid)
• VPN (free)
• Known Malicious Behaviour (Consortium)
• Brute force detection
• API Documentation is available here: documentation
• Video is here

Special Features

• Provide risk based decisions through configuration to allow an administrator the correct flow for their site.
• Consortium model of malicious IP’s created from activity seen across the ThreatPoint network
• Detect and block bots, malware, trojans and aggregators as well as malicious human traffic

Configuration Items

• API Key – An API key is required to access the IP reputation service as explained above – ([email protected])
• Country Blacklist – 2 Character ISO country code csv format. Country codes in this list will cause IP addresses from those countries to issue a redirection. Allows you to block access from countries
• Country Whitelist – 2 Character ISO country code csv format. Country codes in this list will cause only IP addressed from these countries to be allowed. All others will be redirected. Allow all from UK for example.
• Country Blacklist is evaluated first – it makes little sense to have both blacklists and whitelists set although it is a supported option due to demand.
• Redirection URL – The web page you wish traffic to be redirected to – please feel free to use Redirection URL
• Reject IP Risk >= – Redirect IP risk scores marked as Consider or High. Allow low risk only if consider is selected. The risk score is created by the IP reputation service based on the source, location, previous use and history across the IP consortium (velocity, reputation, tor, vpn, proxy)
• Pages to protect – a comma separated list of custom pages that you want to use the IP reputation service
• Disable XMLRPC endpoint by adding entry to .htaccess
• Add malicious IP’s directly to .htaccess to protect wp-login from brute force

Localization

• English (default) – only language currently supported

Feedback

• Many thanks for taking the time to look at the plugin
• Drop the ThreatPoint team a line @threatuk on Twitter
• Email questions or suggestions via ([email protected])
• Api key requests via [email protected]

Translations

• English – default, currently the only language supported

Contributors & Developers

• The ThreatPoint team are often asked to investigate attacks on web sites and other services. More often than not these attacks begin from IP addresses that should be considered before access is granted. The IP reputation API provides the intelligence to protect such services, simply and effective. The WordPress plugin framework allows this to be easily introduced into WordPress sites as an additional layer of protection.
• This is not a silver bullet, but it is a useful deterrent. Best efforts to redirect IP addresses based on IP reputation are made. The service should be used in conjunction with other layers of detection and with defined authentication and access rules as part of an overall security policy.
• ThreatPoint UK also provide email verification, device reputation, dark web monitoring and password monitoring services as part of the API service layer. Please contact [email protected] to find out more about these additional services.

Credits

• Many credits go to the fraud and analytics team at ThreatPoint UK and the team behind the API services
• Credits to numerous wordpress tutorials used to understand the plugin creation process. notably this article https://www.sitepoint.com/real-world-example-wordpress-plugin-development/