Comments on: Bitlybot Scanning WordPress Admin http://www.dougweb.com/doug/2009/09/bitlybot-scanning-wordpress-admin/ The Plum Point Pamphleteer Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:31:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 <img class='wavatar' src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=c1565940f9288ad32d44e6a9a2abf5e5.jpg&s=80&d=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dougweb.com%2Fdoug%2Fwp-content%2Fcache%2Fwavatars%2Fc1565940f9288ad32.png' width='80' height='80' alt='Wavatar' />By: Doug http://www.dougweb.com/doug/2009/09/bitlybot-scanning-wordpress-admin/comment-page-1/#comment-563 Wavatar Doug Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:07:47 +0000 http://www.dougweb.com/doug/?p=2111#comment-563 Watching this bot closely on two blogs I've found that it does not honor robots.txt. It uses the Amazon cloud however the company that is supposed to have had the IP "instance" at that time claims NOT to be bitlybot but rather a well know bot with good intentions. Each time I report the bad bitlybot I get a message back from the other outfit. They hedge and haw and say things like, "Well you didn't have a robots.txt," so I put one in. It didn't matter but they later said, "Well the bot only collects data based on Twitter URL's it finds." That's not true for this bot whatever it is because this bitlybot is looking ONLY at my admin areas by sending http access commands. There's something fishy here that I don't exactly understand. My questions are: 1. Is this the real bitlybot? 2. Is it a hacker or company of hackers attacking a site to find vulnerabilities? 3. What is the motivation for the persistent attempts at access? Oddly enough I have noticed the SAME attempts from a bot using the name ia_archiver. Attempts to access blog admin areas. There's no reason to go there ESPECIALLY since the area is PROHIBITED in robots.txt. Is there anyone seeing weird activity like this? Watching this bot closely on two blogs I've found that it does not honor robots.txt. It uses the Amazon cloud however the company that is supposed to have had the IP "instance" at that time claims NOT to be bitlybot but rather a well know bot with good intentions. Each time I report the bad bitlybot I get a message back from the other outfit. They hedge and haw and say things like, "Well you didn't have a robots.txt," so I put one in. It didn't matter but they later said, "Well the bot only collects data based on Twitter URL's it finds." That's not true for this bot whatever it is because this bitlybot is looking ONLY at my admin areas by sending http access commands. There's something fishy here that I don't exactly understand.

My questions are:

1. Is this the real bitlybot?

2. Is it a hacker or company of hackers attacking a site to find vulnerabilities?

3. What is the motivation for the persistent attempts at access?

Oddly enough I have noticed the SAME attempts from a bot using the name ia_archiver. Attempts to access blog admin areas. There's no reason to go there ESPECIALLY since the area is PROHIBITED in robots.txt. Is there anyone seeing weird activity like this?

]]>