Businesses deal with increasing bot attacks

Netacea released its report into how businesses are dealing with bot attacks. It reveals one key area where businesses are failing to tackle bot attacks — bots are going undiscovered for an average of 16 weeks, up two weeks from last year’s findings.

Bot owners are shifting their tactics, with 60% of businesses detecting attacks on APIs and 39% detecting attacks on mobile apps (up from 46% and 23% from 2021 respectively).

Attacks from each of the main types of bots—sniper, account checker, scalper and scraper—have all increased by between 7-9 percentage points from 2021. 53% of businesses are now detecting attacks from account checker bots.

“On the face of it, this looks like a very poor result for businesses hoping to fight the effect of bot attacks. Our research has shown that bots have a substantial effect on business revenues, and so it’s in their interest for our results to move the other direction,” said Andy Still, CPO, Netacea.

“However, we think that the results can be interpreted another way. Businesses are taking time to wake up to the threat of bots, and we see at least part of this increase in bot attacks being down to a greater awareness. Businesses are getting better and recognising bot attacks, and so while it may look like things are getting worse, there is some cause for cheer.”