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Robots.txt files are simple text files that website owners put in directories to keep web crawlers like Google, Yahoo, from indexing the contents of that directory. It's a game of trust, web masters don't actually trust the spiders to not access every file in the directories, they just expect these documents not to appear in search engines. By and large, the bargain has been kept.
But hackers have made no such bargain, and the mere presence of robots.txt files are like a X on a treasure map. And web site owners get careless, and, yes, some operate under the delusion that the promise of the spiders actually protects these documents.
The Register has an article that explains that hackers and rogue web crawlers, actually use robots.txt files to find directories worth crawling.
Melbourne penetration tester Thiebauld Weksteen is warning system administrators that robots.txt files can give attackers valuable information on potential targets by giving them clues about directories their owners are trying to protect.
Once a hacker gets into a system, it is standard reconnaissance practice to compile and update detailed lists of interesting sub directories by harvesting robots.txt files. It requires less than 100 lines of code.
If you watch your logs, you've probably seen web crawler tracks, and you've probably seen some just walk right past your robots.txt files. If you are smart there really isn't anything of value "protected" by your robots.txt. But the article lists some examples of people who should know better leaving lots of sensitive information hiding behind a robots.txt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:43PM
Denial of reality makes you a happier person, who would've thunk?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Thursday May 21 2015, @10:13PM
When there's a benefit to confront people with the truth one should do so. In other cases there might be a benefit to not bring the matter up. Sometimes to the detriment of the group or person in question. When that group or person causes harm, one needs to take action like confrontation.
In many organizations people in many cases likely ignore reality because it affects the organization and if they did speakup the manager would only make their personal position worse. So denial of reality has some benefits.