The security team is looking into aggressive bot behavior that is resulting in performance issues on the web server. After further investigation, the security engineer determines that the bot traffic is legitimate. Which of the following is the best course of action to reduce performance issues without allocating additional resources to the server?
AnswerD
ExplanationComprehensive and Detailed Step by Step
Understanding the Scenario: The problem is legitimate bot traffic overloading the web server, causing performance issues. The goal is to mitigate this without adding more server resources.
Analyzing the Answer Choices:
A . Block all bot traffic using the IPS: This is too drastic. Blocking all bot traffic can negatively impact legitimate bots, like search engine crawlers, which are important for SEO.
B . Monitor legitimate SEO bot traffic for abnormalities: Monitoring is good practice, but it doesn't actively solve the performance issue caused by the legitimate bots.
C . Configure the WAF to rate-limit bot traffic: Rate limiting is a good option, but it might be too aggressive if not carefully tuned. It could still impact the legitimate bots' ability to function correctly. A WAF is better used to identify and block malicious traffic.
D . Update robots.txt to slow down the crawling speed: This is the most appropriate solution. The robots.txt file is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers (bots). It can specify which parts of the site should not be crawled and, crucially in this case, suggest a crawl delay.
Why D is the Correct Answer:
robots.txt provides a way to politely request that well-behaved bots reduce their crawling speed. The Crawl-delay directive can be used to specify a delay (in seconds) between successive requests.
This approach directly addresses the performance issue by reducing the load caused by the bots without completely blocking them or requiring complex WAF configurations.
CASP+ Relevance: This solution aligns with the CASP+ focus on understanding and applying web application security best practices, managing risks associated with web traffic, and choosing appropriate controls based on specific scenarios.
How it works (elaboration based on web standards and security practices)
robots.txt: This file is placed in the root directory of a website.
Crawl-delay directive: Crawl-delay: 10 would suggest a 10-second delay between requests.
Respectful Bots: Legitimate search engine crawlers (like Googlebot) are designed to respect the directives in robots.txt.
In conclusion, updating the robots.txt file to slow down the crawling speed is the best solution in this scenario because it directly addresses the issue of aggressive bot traffic causing performance problems without blocking legitimate bots or requiring significant configuration changes. It is a targeted and appropriate solution aligned with web security principles and CASP+ objectives.
Okay, here are the next two CASP+ questions, answered and explained in the requested format:
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