Penetration testing using AI bots

Did I just see an OpenAI example?

[SumGuy]

You've heard recently about penetration testing using AI's in sand boxes that somehow escape? Read on and tell me that's not what I've just seen from OpenAI.

Today, twice, I got a few dozen hits from 172.213.2.180. User-agent is:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

My server flags "Chrome/120" as unwanted bot or residential VPN/proxy and serves "you are a bot" file. In most cases I don't know what file was being requested, but for a few of them I know the target path:

/contact-form-7/includes/js/jquery-ui/themes/smoothness/
/content-management/
/core-plugin/
/core-stab/
/core/

None of which I have on my server.

I have seen, just within the past few days, instances from other IP ranges that to me are clearly bot-originated penetration attempts. These IP ranges are not associated to the other main-line AI bots (or regular search bots) - they are IP's associated with crack-pot hosters I have never had hits from before (and as usual I block them when I see them).

The entire 172.213.0.0/16 has been a clean CIDR since I started to see hits from it last year in June and they've all been OpenAI on a few specific /24's.

But the hits I'm seeing today from 172.213.2.180 are far too close to the openai bot's Microsoft IP range (172.213.21.0/24) to be a coincidence.

Also today, the first openai hit from 9.anything (9.129.58.94 - also microsoft). Hits from 9.anything are super rare (5) with 1 in 2025 and 4 this year. I wonder what's going on recently with 9.0.0.0/8.

[Bewenched]

Seeing a lot of similar activities from many ranges.
Here's some the recent paths one tried to take from a google cloud IP of 34.26.230.24
Most times claiming to be google bot
Here is the user agent

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; http://www.google.com/bot.html)

GET /asset-manifest.json - HTTP/2
GET /.aws/config - HTTP/2
GET /.git/config - HTTP/2
GET /webpack-stats.json - HTTP/2
GET /dist/manifest.json - HTTP/2
GET /z9x8c7v6b5-debug-trigger-www.XXXmydomainnamehere.com - HTTP/2
GET /static/manifest.json - HTTP/2
GET /.aws/credentials - HTTP/2
GET /wp-json - HTTP/2
GET /rclone.conf - HTTP/2
GET /assets/manifest.json - HTTP/2
GET /manifest.json - HTTP/2
POST /graphql - HTTP/2
GET /.git-credentials - HTTP/2
GET /.gitconfig - HTTP/2
GET /.gitlab-ci.yml - HTTP/2
GET /js/psearch2.js - HTTP/2
GET /js/tabs.js - HTTP/2
GET /test/prettyphoto/js/jquery.prettyPhoto.js - HTTP/2
GET /.git/HEAD - HTTP/2
POST /api/graphql - HTTP/2
GET /.github/workflows/deploy.yml - HTTP/2
GET /.env - HTTP/2
GET /.env.example - HTTP/2
GET /.env.production - HTTP/2
GET /.env.local - HTTP/2
GET /.env.backup - HTTP/2
GET /.env.old - HTTP/2
GET /.env.bak - HTTP/2
GET /api/.env - HTTP/2
GET /admin/.env - HTTP/2
GET /config/.env - HTTP/2
GET /backend/.env - HTTP/2
GET /service-account.json - HTTP/2
GET /key.json - HTTP/2
GET /credentials.json - HTTP/2
GET /secrets.json - HTTP/2
GET /secrets.yml - HTTP/2
GET /serviceAccountKey.json - HTTP/2
GET /firebase-adminsdk.json - HTTP/2
GET /service_account.json - HTTP/2
GET /Dockerfile - HTTP/2
GET /.github/.env - HTTP/2
GET /.docker/config.json - HTTP/2
GET /firebase-service-account.json - HTTP/2
GET /.htpasswd - HTTP/2
GET /.boto - HTTP/2
GET /.s3cfg - HTTP/2
GET /.npmrc - HTTP/2
GET /.svn/entries - HTTP/2
GET /terraform.tfstate - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/id_ed25519 - HTTP/2
GET /.vscode/launch.json - HTTP/2
GET /docker-compose.yaml - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/id_rsa - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/known_hosts - HTTP/2
GET /id_rsa - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/id_dsa - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/config - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/authorized_keys - HTTP/2
GET /.ssh/id_ecdsa - HTTP/2
GET /id_dsa - HTTP/2
GET /id_ed25519 - HTTP/2
GET /private-key - HTTP/2
GET /server.key - HTTP/2
GET /key.pem - HTTP/2
GET /privatekey.key - HTTP/2
GET /id_ecdsa - HTTP/2
GET /ssl/server.key - HTTP/2
GET /host.key - HTTP/2
GET /ssl/localhost.key - HTTP/2
GET /localhost.key - HTTP/2
GET /.openclaw/openclaw.json - HTTP/2
GET /.openclaw/.env - HTTP/2
GET /.aider.conf.yml - HTTP/2
GET /.hermes/auth.json - HTTP/2
GET /.cursor/mcp.json - HTTP/2
GET /.codex/config.toml - HTTP/2
GET /.hermes/.env - HTTP/2
GET /.continue/config.json - HTTP/2
GET /.hermes/config.yaml - HTTP/2
GET /.claude/settings.json - HTTP/2
GET /.claude.json - HTTP/2
GET /.config/anthropic/credentials/default.json - HTTP/2
GET /.mcp.json - HTTP/2
GET /.profile - HTTP/2
GET /.bash_profile - HTTP/2
GET /web.config - HTTP/2
GET /appsettings.Production.json - HTTP/2

[edited by: not2easy at 11:29 am (utc) on Aug 23, 2026]

[SumGuy]

Anthropic / claudebot went nuts on my site today, from a google /24 assigned to it. I wouldn't call it a hacking attempt, but it was probing for corporate info judging by the paths it was trying. Even though it downloaded sitemap xml files it was guessing at quite a variety of paths (that don't exist) looking for extra corporate info. I'll post the details tommorrow.