Jim, that is the recommendation I told my boss. :)

The client in question is being audited by Visa/Mastercard and they are
using a 'canned' software package/service to perform the audit. In the
future, that recommendation may become a requirement in order to help stop
online fraud.

Thanks, Che

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 11:39 AM
To: CF-Talk
Subject: RE: Robot.txt question... security issue?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Che Vilnonis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 7:30 AM
> To: CF-Talk
> Subject: Robot.txt question... security issue?
>
> A client of ours recently had a security audit on their web site. The
> audit
> recommended that we remove all 'disallow: /xyz/' entries since a potential
> hacker could read the robots.txt file and surmise which folders may be
> sensitive.
>
> Here's my question, if I remove all of the [disallow: /xyz/] lines from
> the
> robots.txt file, how do I stop the search engines from indexing those
> directories?

I would personally ignore the recommendation.  ;^)

(Or more specifically, consider the ramifications of the recommendation and
the choose not to follow it.)

It's like saying that putting a lock on a door let's thieves know that
there's something to protect behind it.  While it may be true that doesn't
mean you don't put a lock on it.

In other words they are correct in that the contents of the Robots.txt might
give hackers a clue, but so will form actions and many other things - that
doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.

Jim Davis







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