Scraper bots are commonly used to acquire prices and content from websites for competitive advantage. Aggressive scraper bot activity slows down websites for customers, resulting in a bad user experience that costs the retailer revenue as frustrated customers are driven to competitors, while exposing vital pricing data.
Client-side technology (such as JavaScript) can be used to create a unique “fingerprint” for a specific device/browser combination, which can be used to modify functionality or detect returning users. Some fraud prevention tools will use fingerprinting to block transactions from browsers that have been previously identified as insecure or involved in fraudulent activity.
It’s PS5 launch day and dedicated fans have been queuing all morning to get their hands on the limited number of consoles available. So far, we’ve seen John Lewis, Tesco, Currys PC World, Game and Argos struggle under the enormity of tens of thousands of visitors. John Lewis was offline entirely while those with a queuing system in place found that slowing the flow of traffic alone was not enough to protect retailers from over selling stock.
In our webinar Bad Bots 101: Credential Stuffing Action, we discuss why these attacks are so difficult for businesses to detect and stop. In today’s blog, we cover some of the salient points explored in the webinar by Netacea’s Head of eCommerce Tom Platt, including the common techniques used by sophisticated bad bots to evade traditional methods of detection.
Scalper bots, also known as inventory hoarding bots, are the bots that thrive on supply and demand. These malicious bots are used to target merchandise that is typically in high demand or limited supply, buying it and selling it on for a tidy profit. The key thing here, is that scalper bots can make purchases extraordinarily quickly, much faster than any genuine user can.
No one could have predicted how 2020 would unfold, particularly for the retail industry. While some high street stores, including major brands, have been forced to close, other retailers have navigated surges of consumers heading online and fueling the eCommerce industry like never before. The holiday period is vital for retailers, with trading figures from November to December able to make or break a businesses’ annual profit margin.
Bad bots are disrupting your website performance, reducing performance and speed. Bot activity, both good and bad, affects all industries including retail, online gambling and gaming and streaming. In our blog we discuss the detrimental impact of bots to your website performance and subsequently, the customer experience, with advice for detecting and mitigating bad bot activity.
APIs served as part of web and mobile applications are vital to enabling customers to interact with your business. However, it’s important to understand the impact on your business when these APIs are used in new, non-standard and potentially unintended ways. While APIs are usually written and intended for use with certain frontends (i.e. web application or mobile app), they are served publicly on the internet and are open to inspection by any interested party.
Bots are evolving dramatically and becoming more sophisticated and launching ever more complex and targeted attacks at ever increasing rates. This makes detecting bots more important than ever but also more difficult than ever. Bots of the more recent generations are harder to identify without expert bot detection tooling. These bots could put businesses at risk of exposure to threats such as scraping, carding, and credential stuffing.
