503 Error – NOT A Support Issue

  • Resolved rickytic

    (@rickytic)


    4 years, 9 months ago

    I have a general question here about Wordfence’s philosphy regarding firewalls & 503 errors.

    Is there a good reason why Wordfence ‘broadcasts’ exactly why user activities are rejected? For instance, when a user or bot makes too many bogus URL entries, it announces this…

    “your access has been limited by the site owner…”

    It also helpfully specifies exactly what triggered it

    “max number of pages not found…”

    WHY do this? In other words, why not just throw a general 503 error. I don’t know about others, but I get A TON of hack traffic. And I hate to give them any insights about thresholds or other concerns I have.

    I have customized the files for the 503. If I recall there are 4 or 5 of them. But they’ll simply revert on the next update. So not really a useful approach. I know a few others have voiced this, and Wordfence said two years ago it was considering making this an option (‘personalized 503 pages, etc). But never happened.

    I LOVE Wordfence. Great great product. And I’m guessing most people don’t consider this an issue to worry about, or we’d have it by now. Thoughts appreciated. Thanks.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • Hey @rickytic,

    Thanks for the feedback!

    Typically these attacks are performed by mindless bots programmed to look for a certain exploit. They don’t have the ability to read the text for context and report back home with the information.

    The reason we do share the limited information (note it won’t say exactly what the limits are) is for users that run into issues to be able to either make adjustments, share the information with the admin, or create a support request.

    I can see in very rare situations not sharing the information would be helpful if an actual person is attacking the site. However, we believe as rare as this might be it’s more helpful to display with limited information about the nature of the block so legitimate users can receive the help they need.

    With this said, I can definitely share your thoughts with the Team.

    Please do let us know if you have any other thoughts.

    Thanks,

    Gerroald

    Thread Starter rickytic

    (@rickytic)

    Your product is so awesome Gerroald. Thank you so much for creating it. I will “leave it be” I guess.

    I’m getting pummeled right now by so many attacks, I have to just trust that Wordfence is getting it right. (Firewall codes are all ‘200’ suggesting successful uploads to my limited tech mind)…but WordFence HIGH SENSITIVITY scans say things are OK.

    Thanks again for the quick reply. Didn’t expect it.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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