Bot Attack from Washington DC - Edge Requests Exceeded (1.7M/1M) - Request to Prevent Auto-Pause

Help
1

Hi Vercel Team and Community,

I’m experiencing a situation with my account and need assistance.

Attack Summary

  • Attack Date: December 16-31, 2025
  • Attack Origin: Washington DC, USA
  • Edge Requests: 1.7M / 1M limit
  • Normal Traffic: Less than 100 users, minimal daily requests

Current Status

The attack caused a massive spike in Edge Requests over 2 weeks. I think traffic pattern shows automated bot activity, not legitimate users.

Important: I have other projects on the same account that would be impacted if the account is auto-paused.

Protections Implemented

I have already enabled the following protections across all projects (after the attack):

  • :white_check_mark: Bot Protection: Enabled
  • :white_check_mark: AI Bots Block: Enabled
  • :white_check_mark: Rate Limits: Enabled
  • :white_check_mark: Monitoring Firewall logs
  • :white_check_mark: It seems like normal traffic has resumed after bot attack stopped

Request

  1. Can auto-pause be prevented given this looks like a bot attack and not legitimate usage?
  2. Are there any additional recommendations to protect against future attacks?
  3. No warning email was received yet - is this expected behavior?

I’m on the Hobby plan and this traffic is suspected malicious bot activity, not legitimate usage. I’m actively monitoring and will maintain all protections.

Thank you for your assistance in advance!

4

The firewall identified this as coming from gptbot which is not restricted by default, so it looks like your site just got indexed for ChatGPT

This is a much heavier crawl than I’d expect though, so I’m escalating internally to check and see if this is accurate or if something was misidentified

5

Hi Vercel Team, I have been experiencing a similar situation, making me reach the limit on my current plan.

  • Attack Origin: Washington DC, USA

  • Fast Origin Transfer: 33,67 GB / 10 GB

  • Edge Requests: 788K / 1M

  • Edge Middleware Invocations: 760K / 1M

  • Function Invocations: 758K / 1M

  • Normal Traffic: Less than 50 users, minimal daily requests

Seems coming from the gptbot

Could we do something about it ? And avoiding the account to be in pause

6

Hi @alexis-regnaud, welcome to the Vercel Community!

Thanks for reaching out here. If you’ve narrowed it down to gptbot then you can use Firewall to block AI bots:

Turn on AI bots protection
Turn on AI bots protection2678×518 41.3 KB

You can also create a custom rule by selecting gptbot from the Firewall > Traffic User Agent list.

1 Like
7

Hi @kdevkh, I wanted to follow up regarding your situation with the bot attack and the edge request limits. Have you been able to implement any measures to prevent auto-pause, or do you still require assistance with this issue? Please let me know if you need more details or specific guidance.