Web server logs containing RS=^ ?
A SANS ISC reader sent us the following Apache log snippet earlier today
108.178.x.x - [11/Mar/2014:04:21:14 +0100] "GET /index.shtml/RK=0/RS=o_wLEbyzxJDMeXhdrhZU9KN7uD4- HTTP/1.0" 302 206
196.196.x.x - [11/Mar/2014:07:43:19 +0100] "GET /index.shtml/RS=^ADAY1N1JxWPFnnOEW3FpVC1g.n4rec- HTTP/1.0" 302 206
88.80.x.x - [11/Mar/2014:15:02:01 +0100] "GET /index.shtml/RS=^ADAw5eOsxy0br6iGm1BZPRs2wtnyAE- HTTP/1.1" 302 206
index.shtml exists on the reader's server, but the RS= / RK= stuff is bogus. The RS= looks like it could be a regular expression for a pattern match of sorts, since it is starting with an anchor "^", but that's guessing. We don't really know. Googling for the pattern shows that this sort of thing has been around for a while, but I didn't find any definite explanation about which software or toolkit these requests are attempting to exploit, if any. If you have information on what this is, please share in the comments below, or via our contact form.