47 Percent of Internet Traffic is From Bots — Security Today

Report: 47 Percent of Internet Traffic is From Bots

Imperva Inc. recently released 2023 Imperva Bad Bot Report, a global analysis of automated bot traffic across the internet. In 2022, nearly half (47.4%) of all internet traffic came from bots, a 5.1% increase over the previous year. The proportion of human traffic (52.6%) decreased to its lowest level in eight years.

For the fourth consecutive year, the volume of bad bot traffic — malicious automated software applications capable of high-speed abuse, misuse, and attacks — grew to 30.2%, a 2.5% increase over 2021. The staggering level of bad bot activity across the internet in 2022 was the highest since the creation of the Imperva Bad Bot Report in 2013. Malicious bot activity is a significant risk for businesses as it can result in account compromise, data theft, spam, higher infrastructure and support costs, customer churn, and degraded online services. Collectively, billions (USD) are lost annually as a result of automated attacks on organizations’ websites, infrastructure, APIs, and applications.

Documenting 10 Years of Bot Evolution and the Rise of Automated Attacks

For the past decade, the annual Imperva Bad Bot Report has provided security and business leaders with useful and practical information about the evolution of bot technology and automated traffic. Imperva was a pioneer in documenting these annual trends for the purpose of raising awareness about the business risk associated with bad bot activity.

Reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the Imperva Bad Bot Report, this year’s report documents milestones in the evolution of bad bot technology. Notable highlights include:

• The EarthLink Spammer, one of the world’s first botnets, was discovered in 2000. It was created by a single individual and sent over a million emails as part of a phishing scam.
• In 2014, Imperva monitored one of the first examples of bots exploiting mobile browser settings to more easily scrape data. This was an early indicator that bot operators were adapting for mobile web and application environments.
• In 2015, the sophistication of bad bots soared 11%. Bot operators used a single bot to cycle through many IP addresses to make a single request while disguising their identity.
• In 2016, as mobile device usage grew, bad bots quickly adapted. For the first time, mobile Safari was one of the leading self-reported user agents, while the volume of bots claiming to be mobile browsers increased 42.78%.
• In 2020 and 2021, bad bots became the pandemic of the internet as automation became more sophisticated. Through inventory hoarding and scraping, bots made it harder for humans to purchase gaming consoles or schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments.

“Bots have evolved rapidly since 2013, but with the advent of generative artificial intelligence, the technology will evolve at an even greater, more concerning pace over the next 10 years,” says Karl Triebes, Senior Vice President and GM, Application Security, Imperva. “Cybercriminals will increase their focus on attacking API endpoints and application business logic with sophisticated automation. As a result, the business disruption and financial impact associated with bad bots will become even more significant in the coming years.”