Safely disable WP REST API
From the author original question I've chosen option 2 that came from wordpress official recommendations(https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/using-the-rest-api/frequently-asked-questions/#can-i-disable-the-rest-api). So just put in your functions.php to let only logged in users use the rest api (but just cross check original link in case my code block is outdated ;) ): UPD(01-10-2021):
add_filter( 'rest_authentication_errors', function( $result ) {
// If a previous authentication check was applied,
// pass that result along without modification.
if ( true === $result || is_wp_error( $result ) ) {
return $result;
}
// No authentication has been performed yet.
// Return an error if user is not logged in.
if ( ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
return new WP_Error(
'rest_not_logged_in',
__( 'You are not currently logged in.' ),
array( 'status' => 401 )
);
}
// Our custom authentication check should have no effect
// on logged-in requests
return $result;
});
You can disable it for requests other than localhost:
function restrict_rest_api_to_localhost() {
$whitelist = [ '127.0.0.1', "::1" ];
if( ! in_array($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], $whitelist ) ){
die( 'REST API is disabled.' );
}
}
add_action( 'rest_api_init', 'restrict_rest_api_to_localhost', 0 );