In a recent Quarterly Index report, Netacea’s Threat Research Team listed the top five scalper bot targets of Q3 2021 and predicted the items most sought after by bots for Black Friday and the festive shopping season. But scalper bots (or grinch bots) have already been hard at work ahead of Christmas, depriving genuine consumers of luxury advent calendars and limited-edition toys in the run up to peak retail period.
Social Engineering is a form of security fraud that relies on psychological manipulation techniques to trick people into revealing sensitive information. This is often carried out online using a variety of social engineering techniques; one of the more commonly referred to social engineering attacks are phishing attacks (including, vishing, smishing, spear phishing and whale phishing).
Online travel agencies, more commonly referred to as OTAs, are online booking platforms used to compare prices and book flights, hotels or holiday packages. Well-known OTAs include Expedia, Booking.com and TripAdvisor. While we have seen a significant increase in the use of OTAs for booking travel arrangements in recent years, we have also seen a similar rise in OTA fraud. Total fraud loss to OTAs was predicted to grow by 19% to $25 billion by the year 2020.
Scraper bots make up the worst of bad bot traffic for the travel industry, with sites witnessing over 90% of traffic attributed to fare scraping. Whilst this activity can be benign or even used for positive means, if uncontrolled it can impact top line revenue, bottom line profits and customer experience.
Influencer marketing is set to be worth $13.8 billion by the end of 2021, rising from $9.7 billion since last year. With many people working from home during the pandemic, monetizing a social media following by creating sponsored posts for brands has become a popular side hustle. This can be seen by the rapid growth of emerging platforms, particularly TikTok which saw over 2 billion downloads in 2020 and a 45% increase in its use by influencers in 2021 to date.
“Buy Now, Pay Later” (or BNPL) schemes are instant approval loans given at the point of sale on eCommerce websites. They are commonly seen on fashion websites, where shoppers are offered the chance to buy products right away and split the payment for their items over several months. Taking the FinTech world by storm in recent years, well-known BNPL providers include Klarna, Clearpay, Laybuy, Payl8r, Afterpay and Affirm.
Search engine optimization is one of the most important aspects of any business’s online marketing strategy. A well-maintained SEO plan provides a low-cost, long-term stream of relevant traffic into a website. Conversely, bad SEO can be very damaging to a business. Poor visibility on search engines like Google hands revenue over to competitors, forces higher spend on PPC advertising, and can damage trust with potential customers searching for you online.
New quarterly report reveals most in-demand goods bought for resale using automated bots Manchester, UK – 28th September 2021 – Netacea, the bot detection and mitigation specialist, today launches its Top Five Scalper Bots Quarterly Index, a list of leading items targeted by scalper bots globally. This first index covers April to June 2021 and shows a mix of technology and fashion as the most frequently targeting items by scalper bots.
Real estate is just one of many industries that was forced to quickly adapt to an increasingly online-first world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual viewings are now the norm, and real estate businesses are scrambling to keep up with how their competitors have changed approach. When looking for a property to buy or rent, we are now likely to search online and look through online listings in the first instance.
Netacea recently conducted a wide-ranging survey to uncover how much bots are really costing businesses. We compiled responses from 440 enterprise businesses spread across the US and UK, and have summed up our findings in an exclusive report, as well as an upcoming live webinar. Of all the sectors we surveyed, financial services was the industry most affected by API attacks, with 97% of businesses stating an API had been attacked by bots in 2020.
