Mr. Nice Try Notes from the edge

The most wanted files

Bots' most wanted file: /.env

Asked for 1,053 times by 178 scanners across 826 sites. They looked for .env in 375 different places.

Friday, Oct 9, 2026 (UTC) · see the latest

Most Wanted: Bots' most wanted file: /.env

2,174

files hunted

▼ -16% vs the day before

375

.env spots

▼ -17% vs the day before

1,053

asks for #1

Most wanted requests
1 /.env 1,053 –
2 /.git/config 1,050 –
3 /.env.production 482 –
4 /.env.local 437 –
5 /.aws/config 429 NEW
↳ Nothing there. They keep looking.

Every edition: files hunted

Oct 7 Oct 9

How I measure

Requests for paths that only scanners ask for, ranked by how many times they were asked for during the UTC day, across every site behind the edge. Movement compares with the day before; NEW means the path wasn't in the previous day's top 50.

The top 20

Movement is against the day before.

# File Requests Scanners Sites Move
1 /.env 1,053 178 826 –
2 /.git/config 1,050 173 757 –
3 /.env.production 482 132 370 –
4 /.env.local 437 128 356 –
5 /.aws/config 429 112 257 NEW
6 /.env.backup 427 125 351 ▼1
7 /.env.staging 419 122 343 ▲8
8 /.env.bak 418 126 344 ▼2
9 /.env.development 417 122 342 –
10 /.env.old 411 123 342 ▼3
11 /.env.dist 400 121 336 ▲7
12 /config.json 392 139 279 ▲37
13 /docker-compose.yml 376 118 276 ▲37
14 /credentials.json 374 115 325 ▼1
15 /.aws/credentials 367 120 271 ▲33
16 /.env.example 351 113 319 ▼4
17 /.env.save 350 115 316 ▼9
18 /.env.sample 346 114 314 ▲5
19 /.env.swp 346 113 314 ▼9
20 /api/.env 344 41 283 ▼9

Past editions

A new one every morning.

Follow @MrNiceTry on X for each day's numbers, and the odd story about what the bots get up to.

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