Benefits of Real-Time Bot Detection

For those unaware, the bot revolution is happening right before our eyes. In fact, nearly half of all internet traffic consists of bot traffic. While some of this traffic is considered good bot traffic – think useful bots like web crawlers or AI chatbots for customer service – much of this can be considered bad bot traffic. 

Many of these bad bots are on the hunt for vulnerabilities to exploit, which is why it is imperative that enterprises look to a bot management solution. That said, any bot management solution should prioritize bot detection in real time. After all, if you can’t detect bots first, how can you mitigate them before the damage is done?

Want to learn more about bad bots, but don’t want to read anymore? Watch our video webinar. Beat Bad Bots by Building Cross-Functional Bonds. 

The rise of bad bots

Malicious bots have become the tool of choice for many cybercriminals. The growth of cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) offerings, in which cybercriminals can purchase malicious bots, is fueling their popularity. CaaS provides cybercriminals with sophisticated bots ready-made to commit fraud and other crimes. For instance, a cybercriminal can purchase a malicious bot or botnet for web scraping, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) that overwhelm web servers, conduct account takeover (ATO) attacks, or send spam and phishing emails. 

Bots can also be used for inventory scraping or sniping attacks in which a cybercriminal uses bots to purchase a popular item – like sneakers, game systems, or concert tickets – and sell them for upcharge prices online. These instances can frustrate potential customers who have to pay more money for inventory that seems to get gobbled up before they have the chance to make their own purchase. Additionally, bots can be used to leave poor reviews of a company, create fake accounts, or impact conversations about an enterprise on social media. 

Regardless of use, all of these bad bot instances go beyond hurting an enterprise’s bottom line and have the potential to negatively impact an enterprise’s hard-earned brand reputation and…