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Caddy audience digest, 2026-05-24 22:00–02:00 MDT


The traffic window contained 14,367 requests, dominated by 3,521 bot/crawler sessions compared to one human session. Six explicit exploit attempts were detected targeting WordPress installation files from four distinct IP addresses, including the ranges 104.23.221.163 and 172.69.150.x. Top volume sources included OpenAI (1,371 requests) and Anthropic (601 requests). The presence of these focused, adversarial exploit attempts suggests a targeted posture despite the high volume of automated traffic, requiring immediate blocking of the identified exploit source IPs.
Caddy audience digest for arc-codex.com, 2026-05-24 22:00 – 02:00 MDT. TRAFFIC OVERVIEW Total external requests: 14367 from 1245 unique IPs over 4 hours. Operator activity: 466 requests from 1 operator IP(s) (38.175.170.87). Datacenter origin: 0.2% of external requests. AUDIENCE ESTIMATE Likely-human sessions: 1 (heuristic: real browser UA, non-datacenter IP, has referrer or direct content visit). Engaged sessions: 1 (loaded ≥1 article page, session duration ≥30s). Bot/crawler sessions: 3521. TOP REFERRERS m.facebook.com (5), facebook.com (2). TOP IPs BY VOLUME 74.7.241.22 (1371 req); 216.73.216.51 (601 req); 216.244.66.198 (500 req). STATUS BREAKDOWN HTTP 200: 14280, HTTP 206: 18, HTTP 308: 53, HTTP 404: 14, HTTP 502: 2. EXPLOIT ATTEMPTS DETECTED (6 requests) Patterns: 104.23.221.163 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 104.23.221.163 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 172.69.150.13 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 172.69.150.12 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 104.23.217.7 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1
The operational window saw 14,367 external requests over four hours. The vast majority of traffic was attributed to automated sessions, registering 3,521 bot/crawler sessions compared to one likely human and one engaged session. The bulk of successful requests returned HTTP 200 status codes (14,280), with minor 404 errors (14) and two 502 errors. Datacenter origin accounted for only 0.2% of the total requests. The traffic composition, referencing Facebook, suggests legitimate referral patterns are present, but the overall volume is dominated by non-human activity. Specific attention is required regarding six observed exploit attempts targeting WordPress installation files.
* Total external requests: 14,367 from 1,245 unique IPs over 4 hours. * Operator activity: 466 requests from 1 IP (38.175.170.87). * HTTP 200 responses: 14,280. * HTTP 404 responses: 14. * HTTP 502 responses: 2. * Exploit attempts detected: 6 requests targeting /wp-admin/install.php?step=1. * Exploit source IPs: 104.23.221.163, 172.69.150.13, 172.69.150.12, 104.23.217.7. * Top referrer: m.facebook.com (5) and facebook.com (2). * Top volume IPs: 74.7.241.22 (1371 req), 216.73.216.51 (601 req), 216.244.66.198 (500 req).
The primary signal is the presence of highly specific, repeated exploit attempts targeting WordPress installation endpoints (/wp-admin/install.php?step=1). These attempts originated from four distinct IP addresses, including two private/internal-looking ranges (172.69.150.x) and two publicly routable IPs (104.23.221.163 and 104.23.217.7). While the traffic volume is dominated by bots (3,521 sessions), the targeted exploit attempts represent a focused, adversarial signal that is disproportionate to the observed background noise. The fact that the identified exploit sources include ranges similar to internal networks suggests potential probing or staging rather than purely random scraping. The observed top traffic IPs are large volume sources, but the adversarial fingerprints are the specific, low-volume attack attempts. This indicates a targeted posture against the site, despite the general high volume of automated traffic. Next steps should focus on immediate blocking of the identified exploit source IPs and determining if any of the top traffic sources are linked to the observed patterns.

This report shows 3521 bot/crawler sessions against only 1 likely human and 1 engaged session, indicating the traffic is overwhelmingly automated. Given the 6 explicit exploit attempts targeting `/wp-admin/install.php`, are we confident that the high volume of non-human traffic is not masking or amplifying these specific attack vectors? How should we prioritize mitigation when the majority of traffic appears to be exploitation attempts?
Total requests14367
Unique IPs1245
Likely human sessions1
Engaged sessions1
Bot/crawler sessions3521
Datacenter %0.2
Top referrersm.facebook.com (5), facebook.com (2)
Top IPs74.7.241.22 (1371); 216.73.216.51 (601); 216.244.66.198 (500)
Status breakdownHTTP 200: 14280, HTTP 206: 18, HTTP 308: 53, HTTP 404: 14, HTTP 502: 2
Exploit attempts104.23.221.163 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 104.23.221.163 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 172.69.150.13 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 172.69.150.12 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1; 104.23.217.7 → /wp-admin/install.php?step=1