Bad bots are detect sophisticated bots and growing threat for businesses that can cause billions of dollars per year in fraud, defraud marketing & advertising spends, spam social media with fake user generated content, spread malware, phishing attacks, account takeovers (ATO), and more. In addition, they can distort public opinion, increase polarization and distrust of institutions, and hinder the customer experience.

First-generation bots are basic single-task bots that use simple scripting tools to perform automated tasks like website scraping, form filling, and spamming. They’re easy to detect with classic rules-based techniques that look for a combination of attributes that can be used to identify bots. But as the technology evolves, bots have become more sophisticated and are able to mimic human behavior more closely. The result is that the traditional fingerprinting techniques, which analyze device and browser characteristics to distinguish between humans and robots, are becoming ineffective.

Beyond Basics: Strategies to Detect and Thwart Sophisticated Bots

The good news is that the technology to prevent bots is advancing just as quickly. Modern fraud prevention solutions can utilize a variety of interesting data points to identify and stop bots, including network and device attribute anomalies, user agent and browser information, and behavioral anomalies such as mouse trails or mobile accelerometer triggers. They can also use a technique called website device fingerprinting to detect the unique characteristics of different software and hardware, flagging the use of suspicious tools or hardware that can indicate that a visitor is not a human. This enables them to stop bots from spoofing web and API data, while ensuring that legitimate traffic is not impacted.