We’re looking forward to hearing Forrester’s research into bot threats over the past year, and sharing expert opinions on what businesses need to watch out for going into 2023, in an upcoming webinar. The webinar will feature Forrester Senior Analyst Janet Worthington, alongside our CPO and co-founder Andy Still and Head of Threat Research Matthew Gracey McMinn. Register now: How will bots impact your business in 2023?
Bots have been in the news a lot lately. Before committing to the Twitter takeover, Elon Musk cited huge bot numbers as a hurdle in completing the deal. Social media bots have also been blamed for interfering in elections and other political processes in recent years. Despite the current focus on bots, they’re not a new phenomenon. Bots have been around for decades — and some have caused serious damage to businesses around the world.
As cyberattacks become more prolific, the spotlight is on the cybersecurity skills shortage impacting businesses around the world. Cybersecurity staff are leaving the industry in droves, due to high stress levels and unrealistic expectations about cyberattack prevention. As a result, the cybersecurity strategy in many businesses must shift. Security should no longer fall just within the remit of select team members. Instead, everyone in the business must be responsible for keeping systems secure.
Christmas shopping season is a lucrative time of year for cybercriminals. In the UK alone, shoppers lost more than £15 million to fraud in the run-up to Christmas 2020. Of this, £2.5 million was lost over a single weekend: Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Online shopping scams are expected to ramp up ahead of Black Friday this year, too. Card cracking is particularly high risk, as heightened traffic volumes make it more difficult for many retailers to detect high volume brute force attacks.
Bots make up more than 42% of all internet traffic — so there’s a good chance bots are regularly visiting your website. While some bots are good, most are malicious, and are designed to cause problems for you and your site users. Many businesses try to protect themselves from bad bots by blocking users from certain locations. This tactic assumes users from far-flung destinations are probably bots.
