Getting lots of server errors directory index forbidden by Options directive from same referer

Question

I have a load of entries in my web server error log from the same referer. See example below:

Cannot serve directory /home/*****/public_html/wp-admin/css/: No matching DirectoryIndex (index.php,index.php7,index.php5,index.perl,index.pl,index.plx,index.ppl,index.cgi,index.jsp,index.jp,index.phtml,index.shtml,index.html,index.js) found, and server-generated directory index forbidden by Options directive, referer: binance.com

I have been getting this error from the same referer (binance.com) for weeks. I know this error is a result of my .htaccess and security settings forbidding indexing in that directory etc... However my question is will having this amount of attempts affect performance? Is the referer (binance.com) the origin of the attempt? If so, is it worth me somehow blocking this independently to tighten security? Or is it best left alone not really affecting anything?

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm running a Wordpress site as well. Recently started seeing the same thing from this referer. The error indicates that binance.com has a page that is attempting to include a directory as though it was a file. Something like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://website.com/wp-admin/css/">

My guess is that this is actually some kind of security scan unrelated to binance.com that is just using their hostname to distract from the scan itself, or spam/scam to drive traffic to binance.com. It appears there has been a rise in these occupancies in the last week or so. I see others reporting the same thing online. The good news is that your Apache config is such that directory listing is disabled. Directory listing is evil ;)