Bad bot traffic hits record high

May 23, 2023 - TuxCare PR Team

According to Imperva’s 10th annual Bad Bot Report, bad bot traffic has dominated the internet, hitting a new high of 47.4% of all online activity, while human-generated traffic has declined to its lowest level in eight years. Bad bot traffic has steadily increased to 30.2% of internet activity in 2022, a 2.5% rise over the previous year.

In 2022, “advanced” bad bots accounted for 51.2% of all bad bot traffic, a huge increase from 25.9% in 2021. The report recorded an increase in account takeover (ATO) assaults, which have turned login screens into a new battleground. In 2022, ATO assaults increased by a whopping 155%. While 15% of all login attempts across sectors were classified as account takeover attempts. Furthermore, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) were constantly targeted by malicious bots, accounting for 17% of all API assaults in 2022. Another 35% of ATO assaults targeted APIs explicitly.

The report also highlights the industries that are most vulnerable to bot assaults. The travel sector was the most targeted by bot assaults, accounting for 24.7% of all attacks. Retail came in second with 21%, while financial services saw 12.7% of the attacks. With 58.7% and 47.7%, respectively, the gaming and telecoms industries had the largest share of harmful bot traffic on their websites and applications.

When looking at the worldwide scene, the data indicates that numerous nations had levels of problematic bot traffic that exceeded the global average of 30.2%. Germany led the way with 68.6%, followed by Ireland with 45.1% and Singapore at 43.1%. The U.S. also outperformed the norm, with a bot traffic rate of 32.1%. The nasty bots are also claimed to favor Mobile Safari as their browser. One in every five malicious bots utilized Mobile Safari in 2022, up from 16.1% the previous year.

The sources for this piece include an article in InfoSecurityMagazine.

Summary