this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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I generated 16 character (upper/lower) subdomain and set up a virtual host for it in Apache, and within an hour was seeing vulnerability scans.

How are folks digging this up? What's the strategy to avoid this?

I am serving it all with a single wildcard SSL cert, if that's relevant.

Thanks

Edit:

  • I am using a single wildcard cert, with no subdomains attached/embedded/however those work
  • I don’t have any subdomains registered with DNS.
  • I attempted dig axfr example.com @ns1.example.com returned zone transfer DENIED

Edit 2: I'm left wondering, is there an apache endpoint that returns all configured virtual hosts?

Edit 3: I'm going to go through this hardening guide and try against with a new random subdomain https://www.tecmint.com/apache-security-tips/

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[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you do a port scan on your box, what services are running? Maybe something like email or diagnostics is exposed to the internet and announcing subdomains?

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[–] BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Did you generate a DNS A record for the subdomain?

[–] waggz@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

if there's no dns entry do you mean you are getting scans to your ip with these random subdomain headers? so someone would need both pieces of information? curious

Yes, exactly. Super weird, shouldn't happen. I wonder if I have a compromised box somewhere...

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