Hi there,
I’m trying to figure out something weird that happened with my form setup. I had a contact form running smoothly for months without any problems. Then I decided to integrate it with an automation platform using webhooks to send the data to another application.
The moment I turned on this webhook connection, my form got flooded with fake submissions from bots. It was like they knew exactly when I made the change.
A few important details:
- The form itself stayed exactly the same - same page, same fields, same everything
- I already solved the spam problem with some filters and security measures
- What puzzles me is the timing - why did bots suddenly find my form?
I’m wondering if anyone knows how this could happen:
- Can webhook URLs get discovered by crawlers somehow?
- Maybe someone on my team accidentally exposed the webhook endpoint?
- Do automation platforms make these URLs visible in ways I don’t know about?
Has anyone else experienced this kind of sudden bot attack right after setting up webhook integrations? I’d really appreciate any technical explanations or similar experiences.
Thanks!
hmm, sounds like ur webhook might’ve been exposed somehow. bots are pretty sneaky and can find endpoints if they’re public or just by scannin other sites. it’s also possible that the platform u used exposed it unknowingly. better check ur settings and re-secure it!
This happened to me about a year ago too. The culprit was network traffic analysis. When you add a webhook, your form starts making HTTP requests to external endpoints that weren’t there before. Bot networks constantly monitor web traffic patterns and can spot these changes through DNS lookups, SSL certificate transparency logs, and response time analysis. The automation platform you connected might also have your webhook URL logged in their system where bots could find it. Another possibility - if bots found that webhook endpoint, they could reverse engineer it back to your form. The timing makes perfect sense because you basically changed your app’s network fingerprint the moment you enabled that integration.
I’ve seen this exact thing happen before. Your webhook endpoint got picked up by automated scanners. Here’s what likely happened: when you connected to the automation platform, your form started sending POST requests to their servers. Bot networks monitor HTTP traffic patterns across the internet and track these outbound connections. They build databases of active webhook endpoints, then probe them to find the source forms. That timing you noticed? Super common. Bots usually discover new integrations within hours because they’re constantly scanning for traffic pattern changes. Your automation platform might also log webhook URLs where search engines or API docs can find them. Doesn’t matter that your form didn’t change - bots found it through the new external connection signature, not traditional web crawling.