One cybersecurity firm’s 2023 global bot activity data can shed some light on this area of growing concern

In analyzing data on automated bot traffic from its customer protection ecosystem, one cybersecurity firm has released its findings for 2023.

Some 49.6% of global web traffic was accruable to bot activity — a 2% increase over that of 2022. Similarly, the proportion of global web traffic associated with bad bots had grown to 32% in 2023, up from 30.2% in 2022. However, data analyzed from the Asia Pacific region showed that bot traffic was 26.6% in 2023, down from 27.9% in 2022 and 34.8% in 2021. This marks a 23.5% decrease over the same analysis process over a three-year period. This gradual decline indicates potential progress in bot detection and mitigation strategies in the region, where bots (good and bad) now comprise over 40% of analyzed internet traffic, an increase of 15.6% year-on-year.

Other key trends detected 

Six other trends gleaned from the firm’s own data:

    • Customers from Ireland (71%), Germany (67.5%), and Mexico (42.8%) saw the highest levels of bad bot traffic in 2023. Those in Japan (17.7%) recorded the lowest level of bad bot traffic in the data analyzed.
    • Rapid adoption of generative AI and large language models likely increased the volume of simple bots globally to 39.6% in 2023, up from 33.4% in 2022. Australia had a high volume of simple bots (70.6%) – 31% higher than the global average. The industries in APAC with the highest proportion of simple bot traffic in the firm’s 2023 data were Automotive (100%), Telecom and ISPs (77.53%), and Healthcare (68.21%).
    • For a second consecutive year, the firm’s global data showed the Gaming industry (57.2%) having the largest proportion of bad bot traffic. Meanwhile, Retail (24.4%), Travel (20.7%), and Financial Services (15.7%) experienced the highest volume of bot attacks. The proportion of advanced bad bots, those that closely mimic human behavior and evade defenses, was highest in Law & Government (75.8%), Entertainment (70.8%), and Financial Services (67.1%) websites. APAC industries with the highest proportion of advanced bot traffic were Gaming (86.04%), Financial Services (73.61%), and Gambling (72.64%).
    • Account takeover attacks increased 10% in 2023, compared to the firm’s data for the same period in 2022. Notably, 44% of all such attacks targeted API endpoints, compared to 35% in 2022. Of all login attempts in the data, 11% were associated with account takeover attacks. The industries that saw the highest volume of such attacks in 2023 were Financial Services (36.8%), Travel (11.5%), and Business Services (8%).
    • Business Logic Attacks/vulnerabilities and automated threats comprised 30% of API attacks in the 2023 data, with 17% involving of bad bots exploiting business logic vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals use automated bots to find and exploit APIs, which act as a direct pathway to sensitive data, making them a prime target for business logic abuse.
    • Bad bot traffic originating from residential ISPs had grown to 25.8%: Bad bots masquerading as mobile user agents accounted for 44.8% of all bad bot traffic in the past year, up from 28.1% in the firm’s data five years ago. Residential proxies allow bot operators to evade detection by making it appear as if the origin of net traffic is a legitimate, ISP-assigned residential IP address.

According to George Lee, Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific and Japan), Imperva, the firm disclosing its 2023 bot activity report: “Organizations face substantial financial losses every year due to automated traffic, a concern that cuts across all industries. Automated bots are on track to outnumber human-generated internet traffic, and with the proliferation of AI-powered tools, their presence is becoming increasingly pervasive. It’s imperative for enterprises to prioritize investment in bot management and API security solutions to effectively combat the threat posed by malicious automated traffic.”