Over the last month there have been some updates about the mysterious 7777 botnet—which was first mentioned in this post in October 2023. Until now, it was known that the botnet was made up of TP-LINK routers and that it was being used to execute very low volume and controlled brute force attacks on Microsoft 365 services targeting corporate accounts. In our continuous efforts to have all sorts of malware families under our radar, the 7777 botnet is no exception.

Welcome back to our Evolution of Scalper Bots series. In part one, the Origins of Scalping, we started our journey through scalping’s long history. We saw that it is far from a new concept: people have been reselling high-demand items for centuries, from as far back as 325 BCE! We’ll continue our journey at the turn of the 21st Century. With the advent of online ticketing, a new frontier had just been opened for scalpers, and things would never be the same again.

In recent weeks we’ve covered how criminals use bots to steal accounts across the web. Credential stuffing tools make this easy and quick to do. If you missed it, watch a live demo of the process in this webinar. In this post we’ll look in more detail at what happens next. How do criminals monetize stolen accounts? To answer this, we’ll use the example of streaming services – one of the quickest and easiest commodities for crooks to shift and make a quick profit.

Attackers and bot authors are continually evolving their methods, shifting their focus beyond just websites. With websites often having a reasonable level of protection, malicious actors are increasingly targeting less-protected areas, namely APIs, with their bots. This blog post delves into the evolving threat landscape. We’ll focus on how attackers exploit APIs and IoT devices to launch attacks like credential stuffing, using streaming services as a prime example.

In the evolving landscape of online ticketing and eCommerce, few technological developments have been as controversial as scalper bots. These automated programs, designed to purchase high-demand items faster and more efficiently than humans could, have transformed the way we buy and sell coveted goods online. During this forthcoming blog series, we are going to explore the fascinating evolution of scalper bots. We will trace their origins, developments, and impacts across several distinct eras.

Streaming services are one of the most popular targets for cybercriminals. Using automated bots, attackers steal millions of streaming accounts each month. Adversaries quickly sell these via illegal marketplaces to make massive profits. Although any streaming service is vulnerable to account takeover and credential stuffing attacks, there are additional risks and damages when live event streaming is on offer.

Bot attacks constitute a major danger to businesses and individuals. For five consecutive years, the percentage of global web traffic connected to bad bots has increased, reaching 32% in 2023, a 1.8% increase from 30.2% in 2022, while human traffic represented only 50.4%. These nefarious bots are designed to breach a system, access confidential files illegally, and disrupt normal operations, which leads to severe financial and reputational consequences.

In part one of our “Follow the Crypto” series, we highlighted the growing need for cryptocurrency investigations in the fight against fraud. We discussed the hurdles that investigations face, from the anonymous nature of transactions to the complexity of analyzing blockchain data, but also noted some famous successful investigations.

Business leaders often see security as an insurance policy – a box that CISOs need to tick just in case the organization comes under attack. This make it difficult for InfoSec decision makers to justify the cost of upgrading defenses. After all, we already ticked that box – right? But when it comes to automated attacks, it’s not a matter of “if” bots will target your business. It’s not even a question of “when”.

Our latest application security report shows a significant rise in bot attacks, jumping from 59.4 million in Q1 2023 to 147 million in Q1 2024—a 147% increase. These automated programs can disrupt services, compromise sensitive data, and threaten the integrity of online operations. To effectively mitigate these risks, businesses must adopt a robust bot protection solution.