Note that 'Bad Bots' are never defined, and that 73% will never be explained, either to say how they mean it (73% of connections is plausible, 73% of packets is not, not in a world with Netflix and YouTube), or how they would measure such a thing. > Bad Bots are increasing dramatically - Arkose estimates that 73% of all internet traffic currently (Q3, 2023) comprises Bad Bots and related fraud farm traffic. Through inventory hoarding and scraping, bots made it harder for humans to purchase gaming consoles or schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments.I feel like this is trying very hard to push a particular narrative but not actually bothering to substantiate anything. In 20, bad bots became the pandemic of the internet as automation became more sophisticated.For the first time, mobile Safari was one of the leading self-reported user agents, while the volume of bots claiming to be mobile browsers increased 42.78%. In 2016, as mobile device usage grew, bad bots quickly adapted.Bot operators used a single bot to cycle through many IP addresses to make a single request while disguising their identity. In 2015, the sophistication of bad bots soared 11%.This was an early indicator that bot operators were adapting for mobile web and application environments. In 2014, Imperva monitored one of the first examples of bots exploiting mobile browser settings to more easily scrape data.It was created by a single individual and sent over a million emails as part of a phishing scam. The EarthLink Spammer, one of the world’s first botnets, was discovered in 2000.Karl Triebes, Imperva senior vice president and general manager of application security, cautioned organizations to be aware of the “rising volume” of internet bad bots:

Updated browsers offer privacy settings that obfuscate bad bot behavior, making it harder for organizations to detect and stop automated traffic. One-in-five bad bots used Mobile Safari as their browser of choice in 2022, up from 16% in 2021.Germany (69%), Ireland (45%), and Singapore (43%) ranked in the top three, while the U.S. Of the 13 countries analyzed in the report, seven had bad bot traffic levels that exceeded the global average of 30%.Gaming (59%) and telecommunications (48%) had the highest proportion of bad bot traffic on their websites and applications. Meanwhile, healthcare and law & government experienced a considerable jump in the volume of bad bot attacks in 2022.

Sectors hit by the highest volume of bots attacks include travel (25%), retail (21%), and financial services (13%) experienced the highest volume of bot attacks.

A business logic attack exploits flaws in the design and implementation of an API or application for the intent of manipulating legitimate functionality to steal sensitive data or illegally gain access to accounts.

In 2022, 17% of all attacks on APIs came from bad bots abusing business logic.

Cyber criminals use bad bots to facilitate credential stuffing and brute force attacks, as automation can cycle through credentials quickly until successful.

Some 15% of all login attempts in the past 12 months, across all industries, were classified as account takeover.

Account takeover attacks increased 155% in 2022.The level of bad bot sophistication in 2021 was 26%. In 2022, the proportion of bad bots classified as “advanced” accounted for more than half (51%) of all bad bot traffic. Bad bots are increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect.

Internet traffic report