What are Bots?
A bot is a program that runs automatically on the internet. It can do simple tasks like collecting data or more complex ones like chatting with users.
Bots work much faster than humans. That's why they're used in search engines and for customer support.
Bot Traffic Explained
Bot traffic means visits to your site from automated programs, not real people. Some bots are good such as search engine bots, used for page indexation, or some monitoring bots check your site's uptime and speed.
But not all bots are good. Bad bots scrape data, flood forms, steal content, and try to break into accounts. They slow down your site, skew analytics, and can cause data breaches.
If bad bots hit your site, expect slower performance and serious security risks.
6 Ways To Prevent Bot Attacks
1. Block or CAPTCHA Outdated User Agents/Browsers
Most bots utilize outdated user agents or browsers since they do not have the newest security protocols and are easy to manipulate on the part of an attacker. Filtering requests with user-agent strings outdated can prevent or challenge suspicious traffic at a site.
This is achieved through configuring server rules or settings of the Content Delivery Network to deny or challenge outdated browsers or prompt them to solve a CAPTCHA. In this way, the website denies access to users using outdated browsers and the bots using old generic user agents are blocked out.
2. Block Known Hosting Providers and Proxy Services
Most bots come from IP addresses of cloud hosting services like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure and proxy servers. Blocking the known sources would certainly curtail the bot traffic that's coming from these automated scripts.
Keep a dynamic list of major hosts and proxy service providers, filter these ranges on your server using their firewall or WAF and include an IP intelligence service that dynamically adds all of those IPs known to start from malicious activity in your block list.
3. Carefully Evaluate Traffic Sources
Sometimes, the sources of traffic may seem suspicious or unknown. For example, an unknown referrer URL may be from places known to be unusual for one's geographic location, either as high-risk networks and other places.
So, traffic sources can be watched as bot traffic can now easily be detected and filtered well before it hits crucial portions of your site.
Analytics tools can identify the referring URL, source region, or traffic pattern.
You can implement CAPTCHAs or more restrictions at the IP layer if it is coming from a specific unknown, high-risk geography. The higher bounce rate or engagement on a given source of traffic is the primary indicator of bots.
4. Investigate Traffic Spikes
Traffic spikes, often unidentified, are generally the result of bot attacks when traffic surges at unusual times or from unusual IP addresses.
Bots directed toward a website may trigger spikes in traffic and may overwhelm servers to create congestion for legitimate users.
Be monitoring for sudden surges of traffic and analyze them to know whether they are real or not.
Tools for monitoring will help ascertain what type of traffic is, and these include IP ranges, user agent strings, and behavior patterns which ought to point out the bots.
5. Monitor increases in Failed Validation of Gift Card Numbers
Bots often key in stolen gift card numbers hoping to find active gift cards. An increase in denied gift card validations most of the time is an indicator of the presence of bots to verify valid card numbers.
Monitor and track the gift card validation requests, marking IP addresses or sessions that have a failure rate higher than the set threshold.
Set rate limits on validation requests and challenge some of the requests with CAPTCHA to prevent automated access against your system. Regular review and monitoring of gift card validation logs for suspicious activities.
6. Pay Close Attention to Public Data Breaches
Public credential breaches encourage attacks from credential stuffing as other sites use the stolen credentials. Industry news and breach alerts will keep you up to date on new security threats that may adversely affect your site.
Check publicly known data breaches against your user database to detect which accounts are compromised. Alert users whose accounts could be compromised to change passwords.
Use proactive security techniques such as account lockout and enhanced monitoring to keep your website from being exposed to credential-stuffing attacks.
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