Nearly a third of all internet traffic recorded in 2023 was generated by bad bots, a new report claims.
An Internet bot is a piece of software that performs large-scale automated tasks on the Internet, such as messaging. Bad bots, on the other hand, perform a variety of malicious activities such as web scraping, account takeover, spam, or denial of service. They degrade online services and force companies to make higher investments in customer support and internet infrastructure.
The 2024 Imperva Bad Bot Report, the latest edition of the company’s analysis of automated bot traffic on the Internet, shows that bad bot traffic reached 32% in 2023, up from 30.2% a year earlier. Human traffic, on the other hand, fell to 50.4%.
Bots on the rise
Since Imperva started tracking automated traffic over a decade ago, the percentage of bot traffic, compared to total traffic, has grown year over year. Today, about half (49.6%) of all internet traffic is generated by bots, an increase of 2% year over year.
“Bots are one of the most pervasive and growing threats facing any industry,” said Nanhi Singh, General Manager of Application Security at Imperva, a Thales company. “Organizations must proactively address the threat of bad bots, as attackers sharpen their focus on API-related exploits that can lead to account compromise or data exfiltration.”
Ireland had the highest level of bad bot traffic last year, at 71%. It was followed by Germany (67.5%) and Mexico (42.8%). In the US the percentage also grew slightly, from 32.1% to 35.4%.
Bad bots are not limited to a specific sector, the researchers said, claiming that “every sector has a bot problem.” Still, gaming saw the majority of bad bot traffic at 57.2%. Retail (24.4%), travel (20.7%) and financial services (15.7%) experienced the highest number of bot attacks.