Adding exclusions to “Unrecognised Files Scanner “

Hi,

Thanks for contacting us.

If you want to exclude file from the scan, make sure you add the file name, not the file path. We’ll probably be adding support for paths at a later date.

Here’s more information about the unrecognised files exclusion:
https://www.icontrolwp.com/blog/extensions-security-scanner/.

Many thanks for your time and if you have any trouble, let us know. We’ll be glad to help.

Regards,
Jelena

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Jelena.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Jelena.

Hi,

Many thanks for getting back to me on this.

From what you’ve said this sounds like quite a big limitation on the uploads folder scanner as, without the file path, the filename could be anywhere beneath your uploads folder and, as long as it was called the correct thing, it would be excluded. So, for example, my index.php file at the top level would be excluded, but if I was hacked and another index.php file was added with malicious code this would also be excluded.

I would suggest thinking about adding file path support as soon as possible because this currently leaves a big hole in the usefulness of that scanner. File name alone is not exclusive enough for a security scanner to ignore it.

Thanks again for the reply and I hope you take on board my comments above as I would love to use this feature to secure my sites more effectively, but for now I’m going to have to switch this off which is a shame.

Thanks

Darren

Hi Darren,

I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not a “big hole”, it just doesn’t offer the kind of refinements you’d like to have at the moment. But then Uploads folder scanning was a secondary addition to the original scan feature and so adjustments will now have to be made.

If you need to switch off the feature, that’s no problem. If it doesn’t work for your needs, then this is the right thing to do. We’ll get file-path support when we can focus our development resources toward it.

This is the nature of this product. We create a new feature, and we evolve it over time. Increasingly people have asked us for support for file paths, and with enough people asking for it, we’ll add it in a new release. When exactly, we don’t know. But review the changelogs for the next releases and you’ll see if it’s in there.

You can help support us in return by leaving us a positive review of your experience with Shield, as well as helping spread the word about us to your colleagues. This would be an enormous help.

Thanks for your feedback.