What is Software Security Research?
Software Security Research is an academic research crawler operated by the Chair for Software Security at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. This bot performs HTTP and HTTPS probes to identify website origins behind Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and reverse proxies as part of research evaluating the global security and privacy characteristics of the Internet. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Category
Expected Behavior
Software Security Research's pattern depends on who pointed it at you. Continuous monitoring services check daily or even hourly, while a one time assessment sweeps once and disappears. Expect requests aimed at login pages, admin paths, APIs, and configuration files, because exposed ones are what scanners exist to find.
Overview
| Operated By | Ruhr University Bochum |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | July 6, 2026 |
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
As of July 6, 2026, 0% of top websites block Software Security Research in their robots.txt files.
Overall Security Scanner Traffic
As of July 6, 2026, 0.0% of all web traffic came from security scanners.
This data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the world's top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
How To Block Software Security Research
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block Software Security Research from accessing your entire website. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Software Security Research # https://knownagents.com/agents/software-security-research
Disallow: /Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block Software Security Research?
Not unless you already run your own scanning and want cleaner logs. Software Security Research checks websites for exposed vulnerabilities, and some scanning services report what they find to site owners for free. Almost none of the top websites we track have robots.txt rules for Software Security Research right now.
Does Software Security Research Respect Robots.txt?
Yes. Software Security Research is expected to honor robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the right first move. Automatic Robots.txt adds and maintains that rule for you, and Agent Analytics confirms Software Security Research actually honors it.
Does Software Security Research Access Private Content?
It probes for private content deliberately. Login pages, admin panels, and API endpoints are exactly what Software Security Research tests, because exposed ones are what it exists to find. Probing is not the same as getting in, but expect requests to sensitive paths in your logs.
Why Is Software Security Research Visiting My Website?
Software Security Research is scanning your site for vulnerabilities, either as part of a sweep across the whole internet or because someone requested an assessment of your domain. Recurring visits usually mean a monitoring service has you on its list.
How Can I Tell if Software Security Research Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks Software Security Research visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user agent string contains "Software Security Research". Look for probes of login, admin, and API paths. Keep in mind that Software Security Research doesn't publish a verification method, so any client can claim its user agent string and a log match is a hint rather than proof.