Overview
IAS crawler is a security scanner from Integral Ad Science used for security scanning, malware checks, vulnerability assessment, certificate review, and site-safety analysis.
Its primary user-agent pattern is ias_crawler; a representative HTTP user-agent is IAS crawler (ias_crawler; http://integralads.com/site-indexing-policy/).
IAS crawler is verified with Medium confidence. The identity type is Verified Bot, and the evidence basis is a public crawler reference or source-linked documentation.
IAS crawler is marked as not reliably governed by robots.txt directives; use server-side rules if the traffic should be restricted.
IAS crawler should be reviewed against site policy, source evidence, crawl rate, and requested paths before a permanent allow or block rule is created.
Identity
- User-Agent
ias_crawler- HTTP Agent Examples
IAS crawler (ias_crawler; http://integralads.com/site-indexing-policy/)- Robots.txt Token
ias_crawler- Identity Type
- Verified Bot
- Evidence Method
- Verify IAS crawler by matching `ias_crawler` to Integral Ad Science evidence, then checking reverse DNS, source-network ownership, signed request data, or published crawler documentation when available.
Classification
- Type
- Security
- Kind
- Scanner
- Family
- Integral Ad Science
- Purpose
- security
Behavior and handling
- Common Use
- IAS crawler is used for security scanning, malware checks, vulnerability assessment, certificate review, and site-safety analysis.
- Detection Notes
- IAS crawler traffic is primarily detected by the `ias_crawler` user-agent pattern; a representative HTTP user-agent is `IAS crawler (ias_crawler; http://integralads.com/site-indexing-policy/)`. Compare source IPs, reverse DNS, request paths, and crawl cadence with Integral Ad Science infrastructure before trusting the traffic.
- Respects robots.txt
- No
- Spoofing Risk
- IAS crawler has medium spoofing risk because user-agent strings can be copied; pair the match with DNS, IP, behavior, or operator evidence.
- Risk
- Neutral
- Recommended Handling
- Depends
Rules and controls
- Robots.txt Snippet
# This agent may ignore robots.txt. Use authenticated access controls or network policy when blocking is required.