Bot traffic isn’t just a problem for big enterprises. Even small businesses with public-facing apps and APIs can struggle when automation starts hitting their infrastructure.
A local courier company recently faced this first-hand. Their web application handled parcel tracking, customer notifications, and API integrations — and bots were quietly draining resources, slowing down their services, and causing operational headaches.
Here’s how SafeLine WAF helped them regain control without rewriting their application or frustrating legitimate users.
The Problem: Traffic That Looks Legitimate
At first glance, traffic spikes seemed like a good sign:
- Page views were climbing
- API requests increased
- Server utilization went up
But deeper metrics told a different story:
- Customer registrations stagnated
- Conversion rates dropped
- API responses became unreliable during peak hours
Logs revealed the culprit: a significant portion of traffic wasn’t human. Bots were:
- Scraping parcel tracking data
- Probing APIs for weaknesses
- Replaying valid requests to extract business info
- Using headless browsers to mimic real users
Traditional rule-based defenses didn’t catch them. They looked like normal users, so static rules and IP blocks failed.
Tried and Failed: Conventional Defenses
The IT team experimented with common strategies:
- IP blocking — ineffective because bots rotated addresses
- Rate limiting — blocked legitimate users during peak hours
- CAPTCHA challenges — frustrated mobile users, causing drop-offs
The main takeaway: the problem wasn’t just volume. It was automation that looked like a human user.
They needed a solution that could tell bots and humans apart without constant tuning or invasive changes.
Enter SafeLine WAF: Layered Protection
SafeLine WAF was deployed as a reverse proxy. No code changes, no business logic rewrites — just route traffic through the WAF.
Dynamic Protection: Break the Automation
The first layer was Dynamic Protection:
- HTML and JavaScript are transformed on the fly
- Static pages become unpredictable for automated tools
- Scrapers and scanners fail silently
- User experience remains unchanged
Result: scraping attempts dropped within days. Bots couldn’t rely on predictable page structures or reused JS logic.
Human Verification: Behavior-Based Filtering
Some automation still reached APIs, so the team enabled Human Verification:
- Evaluates browser authenticity, IP reputation, and behavioral patterns
- Generates a composite score instead of relying on a single indicator
- Blocks bots at the edge, silently
Outcome: real users continued without interruption. Malicious automation got blocked, and false positives were minimal.
Request Anti-Replay: Stop Replay Attacks
Next, they tackled HTTP replay attacks. Bots were replaying valid requests to:
- Extract expensive API data
- Iterate parameters without authentication
- Abuse state-changing endpoints
SafeLine’s Request Anti-Replay issued one-time tokens per session:
- Each request could only be used once
- Replayed requests were blocked automatically
- Sessions involved in attacks were revoked
From the application perspective, nothing changed. From the attacker’s perspective, replaying requests became impossible.
Results: Stability and Efficiency
After deploying SafeLine WAF:
- Automated traffic decreased significantly
- API response times stabilized
- Operational alerts and rule tuning dropped
- Customer-facing services remained smooth
Bot mitigation became part of the system — not an endless firefight.
Lessons for Dev Teams
- Automation is everywhere: Not just high-profile targets, even small APIs are affected
- Layered defense works best: Content transformation + behavioral analysis + request integrity
- User experience matters: Security doesn’t have to break the workflow
For small teams, SafeLine shows that bot defense can be proactive, adaptive, and mostly invisible.
Conclusion
This courier company regained control of their digital infrastructure thanks to SafeLine WAF. Automation attacks were mitigated, APIs stabilized, and the team could focus on product improvements instead of firefighting bot traffic.
For developers and small IT teams, adopting a layered, intelligent WAF can be a game-changer in maintaining both security and business performance.
Top comments (0)