--- title: How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New... description: Automated bot scans probing for exposed secrets like /private-key and /.env.live flooded a Rails app's error feed and burned through its Rollbar quota. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-bot-scans-used-up-my-rollbar-quota-and-triggered-new-relic-alerts-u6caqli6x twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New Relic alerts | daily.dev og:description: Automated bot scans probing for exposed secrets like /private-key and /.env.live flooded a Rails app's error feed and burned through its Rollbar quota. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-bot-scans-used-up-my-rollbar-quota-and-triggered-new-relic-alerts-u6caqli6x og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/U6CAqLi6X.png og:image:alt: How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New Relic alerts og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New Relic alerts **[Ruby Flow](https://daily.dev/sources/rubyflow)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Automated bot scans probing for exposed secrets like /private-key and /.env.live flooded a Rails app's error feed and burned through its Rollbar quota. The scan traffic also triggered a critical New Relic alert when response time briefly rose to about 160ms. Some requests carried AI bot labels like PerplexityBot and OAI-AdsBot, but the author notes a User-Agent name doesn't verify the actual sender. The fix was adding an exception_level_filters rule in the Rollbar initializer to ignore ActionController::RoutingError, preserving quota for real failures while 404s still return normally. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I stop ActionController::RoutingError exceptions from filling up my Rollbar quota in Rails? Add an exception filter to the Rollbar initializer that sets the ActionController::RoutingError level to 'ignore', using config.exception_level_filters.merge! to preserve existing filters. After deploying, unknown URLs still return a 404 response, but uncaught routing errors stop consuming Rollbar events, while other application exceptions still get reported. _daily.dev surfaces practical Rails monitoring fixes like this for engineers tuning noisy error feeds._ ### Can bot scan traffic cause false performance alerts in New Relic? Yes, a burst of scanner requests probing for files like /private-key or /.env.live can coincide with a temporary rise in response time, reaching roughly 160ms before returning near baseline, with most of the increase in the Web external category. This can trigger a critical New Relic alert that looks like an urgent application incident even though the underlying cause is unverified. _Teams chasing noisy alerts can track real-world monitoring incidents like this one on daily.dev._ ### Does a bot User-Agent string like PerplexityBot prove the request came from that company's crawler? No, a User-Agent label does not verify the sender. Any scanner can put an arbitrary name such as PerplexityBot, OAI-AdsBot, or MoonshotBot into its User-Agent header, so a recognizable AI bot name in scan traffic requesting secret files should not make the request seem less suspicious without checking raw IPs against the operator's published verification guidance. _daily.dev helps developers stay sharp on bot verification pitfalls when triaging suspicious traffic._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Toxic combinations: when small signals add up to a security incident](https://daily.dev/posts/toxic-combinations-when-small-signals-add-up-to-a-security-incident-llkugteyh) · Cloudflare · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How Nous Research used BotID to block automated abuse at scale](https://daily.dev/posts/how-nous-research-used-botid-to-block-automated-abuse-at-scale-ktdn9cv0a) · Vercel · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your chat bot needs a better rate limit strategy](https://daily.dev/posts/your-chat-bot-needs-a-better-rate-limit-strategy-3z5ej73qe) · thoughbot · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Issue \#817: Did AI agents attack RubyGems? — Ruby Weekly](https://daily.dev/posts/issue-817-did-ai-agents-attack-rubygems-ruby-weekly-57vzzq3nc) · Ruby Weekly · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Future-Proof Your App Security Against Evolving AI Attacks](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-future-proof-your-app-security-against-evolving-ai-attacks-uuqmqbqz2) · Arcjet · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devops](https://daily.dev/tags/devops), [#rails](https://daily.dev/tags/rails) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-bot-scans-used-up-my-rollbar-quota-and-triggered-new-relic-alerts-u6caqli6x) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New Relic alerts","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-bot-scans-used-up-my-rollbar-quota-and-triggered-new-relic-alerts-u6caqli6x","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-bot-scans-used-up-my-rollbar-quota-and-triggered-new-relic-alerts-u6caqli6x"},"datePublished":"2026-10-27T17:04:44.665Z","dateModified":"2026-10-27T17:11:05.009Z","description":"Automated bot scans probing for exposed secrets like /private-key and /.env.live flooded a Rails app's error feed and burned through its Rollbar quota. 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