Blue Team — Operational Summary
The 4-hour observation period showed 4,982 external requests originating from 515 unique IPs. The vast majority of traffic consisted of bot/crawler sessions, totaling 778 sessions, with zero estimated likely-human or engaged sessions. The traffic composition suggests high automated scraping or enumeration activity. Status codes included 4,932 HTTP 200 responses, but also notable errors: 7 instances of HTTP 502 errors, 10 HTTP 404 errors, and 28 HTTP 308 responses.
One single operator IP generated 173 requests, and only 0.2% of traffic originated from the datacenter origin. Four exploit attempts were detected targeting the `/wp-admin/install.php?step=1` path from specific external IPs. The data reflects a high volume of automated activity alongside intermittent server errors.
Red Team — Facts Only
* Total external requests: 4,982 from 515 unique IPs over 4 hours.
* Bot/crawler sessions: 778.
* Likely-human sessions: 0.
* HTTP Status Codes: 4,932 (200), 1 (206), 4 (304), 28 (308), 10 (404), 7 (502).
* Operator activity: 173 requests from 1 IP (38.175.170.87).
* Exploit attempts detected: 4 requests targeting `/wp-admin/install.php?step=1`.
* Source IPs involved in exploit attempts: 162.158.182.93, 104.23.221.17, and 104.23.221.16.
* Top external IPs: 74.7.241.22 (472 req), 216.73.216.51 (212 req), 216.244.66.198 (123 req).
Purple Team — Pattern Analysis
The traffic profile is overwhelmingly indicative of automated crawling, evidenced by the 778 bot sessions and the absence of human engagement. The volume of traffic, while high, is consistent with aggressive bot activity rather than normal site traffic.
The specific detection of four exploit attempts targeting the WordPress installation path (`/wp-admin/install.php?step=1`) introduces a layer of potential risk that is not explained by the general bot traffic. These attempts originated from specific, distinct IPs, suggesting targeted probing or vulnerability scanning rather than random scraping.
The presence of HTTP 502 errors (7 instances) alongside targeted exploit attempts suggests that the infrastructure experienced stress or was actively targeted during this window, even if the overall traffic volume was mostly noise. The focus should be on the source and timing of the exploit attempts and the identified malicious IPs, rather than the total traffic count.
The operational implication is that the infrastructure is currently dealing with intentional adversarial probing, and the observed exploit attempts represent a specific, actionable signal that requires immediate triage of the attacking IPs and the status of the WordPress installation process.