Recently I noticed that a new line was added in the htaccess file in several locations throughout the file.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/(?:\ Ballot169)?
I don't understand what it does, and I would like clarification if possible for its purpose.
An example of how it appears is shown in this example below.
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/cpanel-dcv/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/(?:\ Ballot169)?
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/cpanel-dcv/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/(?:\ Ballot169)?
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Thank you in advance.