Mitigating bot attacks is a major concern for security leaders, according to new research published May 6 by cybersecurity firm Human (formerly White Ops). The “2021 Bot Management Trends” report , which is based on research conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) , highlights concerns about a range of threats posed by bots.
In the first quarter of 2021, ESG surveyed 425 IT and cybersecurity professionals with knowledge and responsibilities for application for their organizations about their perceptions of and responses to bot attacks.
Read also: Businesses: Are they ready to face the threat of bots?
Leaders expressed concerns that bots could cause a site to slow down from overwhelming traffic, account fraud, credential cracking/brute force attacks, account takeover, content manipulation, scraping of sensitive content, and more.
Among the key findings of the report is that nearly half of respondents believed their organization could be vulnerable to a sophisticated bot attack. The majority of respondents (90%) said they consider bot management a top cybersecurity priority. This finding ties into security leaders’ view of how sophisticated bots are, as 86% of respondents said they believed most bots are capable of bypassing simple bot mitigation capabilities.
See also: Android malware FluBot spreads very quickly
“This research highlights how vital a robust bot mitigation platform is to a strong cybersecurity posture. Sophisticated bots can have a hugely detrimental impact on the customer experience, and the time it takes to rebuild trust with customers is time that today’s organizations don’t have,” said Tamer Hassan, co-founder and CEO of Human.
The impact of bot attacks on those surveyed was significant, with 37% of respondents confirming that they had been the victim of sophisticated bot attacks in the past twelve months. Another 30% of respondents believed they had been the victim of a bot attack but were unable to confirm it.
Suggestion: Prometei botnet targets unpatched Microsoft Exchange servers!
John Grady, senior analyst at ESG, said bot attacks are on the rise.
“As organizations have shifted to online-focused business operations, it’s a trend that has been further accelerated by the pandemic, as attackers have redoubled their efforts and increased the frequency of bot fraud and abuse. This new research examines how application security leaders perceive the threat of bot attacks and what their plans are for combating them,” Grady said.
Information source: info-securitymagazine.com
