Netacea Survey Identifies Dangerous Misperceptions Regarding Bots

Netacea, a bot detection and mitigation specialist, announced the results from a new report, indicating that most businesses do not fully understand the threat that bots can pose, thus leaving them vulnerable to considerable risk.

The report – The Bot Management Review: Separating Bot Fact from Fiction – found that while most businesses were aware that bots were an issue, many were confused about where attacks originate and what technologies and techniques were effective against bots.

Approximately 67 percent of businesses believe that WAFs (Web Application Firewalls) and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection keep them secure from bot attacks, a fallacy in that they can only prevent some attacks.

Previous research from Netacea found that bots damage businesses both directly and indirectly. Bot traffic costs businesses millions, whether bots are scraping content, buying goods before anyone else or using stolen passwords to take over accounts. However, while businesses understand that this threat exists, this does not mean they understand how to fight it.

Other top bot-related myths included:

  • Bot attacks come only come from Russia and China (believed by 61 percent).
  • All bots are bought on the dark web (believed by 58 percent).
  • All bot users are criminals (believed by 55 percent).

“The first step to preventing any attack is to understand it, otherwise you’re flying blind. In the case of bots, if security teams cannot identify the nature of an attack and are deploying the wrong solutions, they are leaving themselves open to attack,” said Andy Still, CTO, Netacea. “Bots are growing in sophistication and popularity among both professional and amateur hackers. Only with a better understanding of what bots are capable of and what tools and techniques are effective against them will security teams be better prepared for the threat bots pose to their businesses.”

The survey collected responses from 440 businesses across the travel, entertainment, eCommerce, financial services and telecommunications sectors in the U.S. and the U.K. The full report can be downloaded via www.netacea.com/separating-bot-fact-from-fiction-report.