Setting Hotlink Protection

Overview

Tencent Cloud COS provides hotlink protection support for users to avoid unnecessary losses caused by malicious programs' cheating for public network traffic using resource URLs or stealing of resources by malicious means. It is recommended that you configure the blacklist/whitelist in Hotlink Protection Settings in the console for security protection.

Procedure

1. Log in to the COS Console and then select the Bucket List in the left pane to go to the Bucket List page. Click the bucket (such as examplebucket-1250000000) for which you want to set hotlink protection to enter the bucket.
   
2. Click Basic Configuration, find Hotlink Protection Settings, and click Edit.
   
3. Modify the current status to Enabled, select a list type (blacklist or whitelist), enter applicable domain names, and then click Save.
   

Notes：

• After enabling Hotlink Protection, you must enter applicable domain names.
• Blacklist: Domain names on this list are not allowed to access the default access address of the bucket. 403 is returned if any domain name on the list accesses such address.
• Whitelist: Only domain names on this list are allowed to access the default access address of the bucket. 403 is returned if any domain name not on the list accesses such address.
• In HTTP requests, the header referer can be left empty. (An HTTP request header without the field of referer is allowed or the referer field is empty.)
• A maximum of 10 addresses including domain names and IPs are supported. Wildcard (*) in addresses is allowed and domain names with the same prefix are also subject to the list. One address per line.
  Examples (The following examples are for reference only):
  If www.example.com is specified, www.example.com/123, www.example.com.cn, and other addresses with the prefix of www.example.com will also be included in the list;
  Domain names and IPs with ports are supported, such as www.example.com:8080 and 10.10.10.10:8080.
  If * .example.com is specified, such addresses as a.b.example.com/123 and a.example.com are also included.
• If accelerated access is implemented via CDN domain name, CDN hotlink protection rules will be executed before COS hotlink protection rules.

Example

A user with the APPID of 1250000000 creates a bucket named examplebucket-1250000000 and places an image picture.jpg in the root directory, and COS generates the following default access address according to the rules:

examplebucket-1250000000.file.myqcloud.com/picture.jpg

User A owns a website:

www.example.com

and embeds the image into the homepage index.html.

Webmaster B manages a website:

www.fake.com

and wants to put this image on www.fake.com. But he doesn't want to pay for traffic costs. He uses the image on his site by copying the following address and placing it onto the homepage index.html on www.fake.com.

examplebucket-1250000000.file.myqcloud.com/picture.jpg

To avoid losses of User A in such cases, we provide the following two methods to enable hotlink protection.

Method 1

Configure the blacklist by entering the domain name *.fake.com, and save.

Method 2

Configure the whitelist by entering the domain name *.example.com, and save.

Before enabled

The image is displayed normally when http://www.example.com/index.html is accessed.
The image is also displayed normally when http://www.fake.com/index.html is accessed.

After enabled

The image is displayed normally when http://www.example.com/index.html is accessed.
The image cannot be displayed when http://www.fake.com/index.html is accessed.