How to Enable Hotlink Protection in cPanel

Posted about 4 months ago 3.6k Security CPanel .htaccess Bandwidth Management

What is Hotlinking

Bandwidth theft: Others embedding your images on their sites.

Enable Hotlink Protection

cPanel → Security → Hotlink Protection → Enable → Add your domains.

Allow Your Own Domains

List domains that can embed your images (your site, CDN, etc.).

Advanced .htaccess Method

Custom Rewrite Rules

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|webp)$ - [NC,F,L]

Protected Extensions Table

Extension	Recommended
jpg, png, gif	Yes
webp, svg	Yes
mp4, pdf	Optional

Content