Noxious bots are causing 40% worldwide internet traffic, Barracuda Report, a trusted partner and provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, explained 40% of all internet traffic, including web and price scraping, inventory hoarding, account takeover attacks, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and more. The once solely used automated bots as search engines, now account for approximately two-third of all internet traffic.
“While some bots like search engine crawlers are good, our research shows that a much larger number of bots are dedicated to carrying out malicious activities at scale,” said NitzanMiron, VP of Product Management, Application Security, Barracuda.
Also added, “When left unchecked, these bad bots can have serious consequences for businesses and ultimately lead to a breach. That’s why it’s critically important to be prepared to detect and block these attacks.”
Consumers’ use of online shopping and other online services has increased in the recent year as a result of lockdowns and a greater emphasis by organisations on supplying digital services. Attackers have rushed to capitalise on this popularity, with Barracuda’s research revealing that advanced persistent bots are now primarily targeting eCommerce applications and login sites.
While harmful bots’ internet activity has now surpassed that of people, attackers have been creating these automated programmes to look like humans. Barracuda’s research discovered that problematic bot behaviour peaks during work hours, closely mimicking human internet usage trends. This is in stark contrast to good bots, which do not attempt to overcome security defences and hence maintain relatively stable traffic rates throughout the day.
Though the advent of public cloud has unquestionably been beneficial, it has also given cybercriminals more power. According to Barracuda’s analysis, almost equal amounts of bot traffic currently go to the two major public cloud providers, AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Bot attacks: Top Threats and Trends – Insights into the Growing Number of Automated Attacks, a Barracuda report, examines rising traffic patterns, real examples of bot behaviour and detection, and the steps businesses should take to defend themselves.
