diff --git a/src/lib/ddos.ts b/src/lib/ddos.ts
index 5dfc815c..1b1035d2 100644
--- a/src/lib/ddos.ts
+++ b/src/lib/ddos.ts
@@ -35,9 +35,29 @@ const HOSTILE_PATH_SEGMENTS = new Set([
 	"server-status",
 	".env",
 	".git",
+	"cmd.exe", // Windows command execution
+	"shell", // Generic web shell indicator
+	"jndi", // Log4j exploit attempts
+	"tomcat", // Tomcat exploitation attempts
+	"web-inf", // Java web app directory exposure
+	"passwd", // Linux password file attempts
+	"etc", // Linux configuration directory traversal
 ]);
 
-const HOSTILE_PATH_EXTENSIONS = [".php", ".asp", ".aspx", ".jsp", ".cgi"];
+const HOSTILE_PATH_EXTENSIONS = [
+	".php",
+	".asp",
+	".aspx",
+	".jsp",
+	".cgi",
+	".env", // Direct .env file access
+	".bak", // Backup files
+	".sql", // Database dumps
+	".zip", // Archives that may contain sensitive data
+	".rar", // Archives that may contain sensitive data
+	".7z", // Archives that may contain sensitive data
+	".txt", // Generic text files that might contain sensitive data
+];
 
 /**
  * Cheap scanner/exploit triage. These paths are never routes in this app, so a
diff --git a/src/proxy.ts b/src/proxy.ts
index 50055848..5570392f 100644
--- a/src/proxy.ts
+++ b/src/proxy.ts
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ import { NextResponse } from "next/server";
 import { getToken } from "next-auth/jwt";
 import { env } from "@/env";
 import { buildContentSecurityPolicy, createCspNonce } from "@/lib/csp";
+import { isSuspiciousPath } from "@/lib/ddos";
 import { ddosReject, enforceDdosRateLimit } from "@/lib/ddos-guard";
 import {
 	isCacheableAssetPath,
@@ -19,6 +20,13 @@ const SECURITY_HEADERS: Record<string, string> = {
 };
 
 export const proxy = async (req: import("next/server").NextRequest) => {
+	const pathname = req.nextUrl.pathname;
+
+	// Drop scanner probes immediately before performing any rate-limit or DB operations.
+	if (isSuspiciousPath(pathname)) {
+		return ddosReject(403);
+	}
+
 	// Server actions carry an opaque action id in this header. A malformed or
 	// trivially short id (e.g. "x" sent by bots) can never resolve to a real
 	// action; rejecting it here avoids the expensive lookup/render path.
@@ -28,15 +36,10 @@ export const proxy = async (req: import("next/server").NextRequest) => {
 	}
 
 	const decision = await enforceDdosRateLimit(req);
-	if (decision.outcome === "suspect") {
-		return ddosReject(403);
-	}
 	if (decision.outcome === "block") {
 		return ddosReject(429, decision.retryAfterSeconds);
 	}
 
-	const pathname = req.nextUrl.pathname;
-
 	// Only /admin needs a real session token for the redirect guard; skipping
 	// JWT decoding on every other request keeps the proxy cheap under load.
 	const adminPath = pathname === "/admin" || pathname.startsWith("/admin/");