Too many requests for crossdomain.xml

Question

I have a zend framework application that sends me an email in the error controller whenever an error occurs that includes pages not found, can someone tell me why someone requests this file: /crossdomain.xml ? Should I permanently block the offending IP Address?

Answer 1

crossdomain.xml is used to specify domains YOU trust which can access your website (domain) data. You can safely ignore or block these IP addresses if you aren't making use of crossdomain.xml file.

Answer 2

Crossdomain.xml is a file giving flash certain permissions when a flash object makes a request of your server. IIRC it is assumed that a flash file served from your domain will necessarily have the rights to access items on your domain. However, if a flash piece is being served from another domain and making requests from your server, the flash runtime has to access crossdomain.xml to see if the flash piece may have the rights to access the data.

It's hard to know from what you've posted if there is indeed abuse going on.