Cloud Management
Cloud Security
The Rise of Automated Threats to Web Applications
The nature of website attacks on the internet has changed dramatically over the recent years. These days, when competitors and hackers think to bring down a business, the best and most effective way is to launch an automated attack. Rather than a person trying to hack into your system, online bots drive the automated attacks on websites and APIs that can destroy your business. In fact, these threats have become so severe that OWASP, the worldwide not-for-profit organization focused on improving the security of software, published the first Automated Threat Handbook in late 2015. Naturally, this guide specifically helps organizations better understand and respond to the worldwide increase of automated threats from bots
Since this threat could potentially affect you, we have listed the most severe threats that automated traffic on the web poses to online businesses, the impact it can have on your business and the ways you can prevent them.
1. Account Takeover
Account Takeover fraud is a form of identity theft in which the fraudster gains access to a victim’s account. They get into either bank or credit card accounts through a malware, phishing or data breach, and make unauthorized transactions. These days, brute force attacks and credential stuffing are the two most common techniques used by fraudsters for account takeover.
Impact of Account Takeover on your Business
- Unauthorized Account Access
- Financial Losses
- Loss of Brand Reputation
Account Takeover Prevention
InfiSecure is the most accurate bot mitigation platform that provides real-time protection for your website and its users against account takeover and other automated threats. For example, the bot detection engine uses deep user-behavior analysis, device fingerprinting, centralized intelligence and machine learning algorithms to spot even the most advanced account takeover attempts and other online frauds.
2. Web & Price Scraping
Web scraping is a process of extracting website content, pricing data as well as other useful data from websites and publishing it elsewhere. Specifically, competitors employ scraper bots to continuously crawl your web pages for information about your pricing and content. Therefore, the goal is to undercut your dynamic pricing and duplicate your unique content.
Impact of Web & Price Scraping on your Business
- Losing Unique Content
- Loss of SEO Ranking
- Undercutting your Pricing
- Skewed Analytics
- Bad User Experience
Web & Price Scraping Prevention
Prevent web and price scraping bots from extracting your unique content and pricing data with InfiSecure’s bot protection solution. It detects scraper bots in real-time and blocks them before they could cause harm to your content and pricing data.
3. Form Spam
Malicious bots commit form spam by posting unsolicited messages or unwanted information on your website forms. Not to mention, they may post malicious links that can steal the user’s private data even if accidentally clicked. Ultimately, this type of automated attack can damage your website’s user experience and brand reputation.
Impact of Form spam on your Business
- Fake Account Creation
- Comment Spam
- Sever Overload and Infrastructure Cost
- Loss of Brand Value
Form Spam Prevention
InfiSecure’s bot protection solution protects online businesses from form spam and other automated threats. As a result, you can enhance your brand competitiveness by blocking spam bots from your website in the first place.
Carding Fraud
Carding fraud occurs when hackers or bad actors run thousands of small purchases with stolen credit card numbers. Afterwards, they will turn around and resell them at a much higher price. This will result in poor merchant history, chargeback penalties and potentially even worse.
Impact of Carding on your Business
- Loss of Brand Reputation
- Ineffective Loyalty Points
Carding Fraud Prevention
InfiSecure’s finger printing technology validates if there is a human behind the browser. Most importantly, carding bots that mimic human behavior cannot escape from InfiSecure’s bot detection engine. Furthermore, it provides real-time protection from all carding frauds to your website, reducing the risk of automated attacks.
OWASP Top Automated Threats
Many industries, such as airlines, ecommerce, travel sites, etc., are vulnerable to automated threats such as bot abuse. If not detected and blocked properly, these threats may put a dent in a business’s bottom line. For this reason, creating certain guidelines was necessary to help protect businesses and their websites.
OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project) is a worldwide not-for-profit organization focused on improving the security of all software. As a result, OWASP released an Automated Threat Handbook that provides actionable information and resources to help defend against threats to web applications. This handbook is a standard reference guide that is grouped into four major categories: account credentials, payment cardholder data, vulnerability identification and other automated threats.
Four Major Automated Threats
Account Credentials is the threat of confidential user data being stolen and is subcategorized into account aggregation, account creation, credential cracking and credential stuffing. In addition, Payment Cardholder Data is an automated threat that targets payment method abuse, such as stealing user credit card data to make unauthorized purchases. Similarly, it is subcategorized into carding, card cracking and cashing out threats. Vulnerability Identification scans for loopholes in the web application through different ways like foot printing, vulnerability scanning and fingerprinting. Lastly, there are other automated threats that include website threats like ad fraud, CAPTCHA Bypass, Daniel of Service, expediting, scalping, scraping, skewing, sniping, spamming, Token cracking and Inventory exhaustion threats.
Impact of OWASP Automated Threats on your Business
- Unauthorized Account Access and Online Fraud
- Excessive Penalties and Loss of Brand Reputation
- Bad Customer Experience
OWASP Automated Threat Protection
Luckily, InfiSecure bot protection gives real-time protection against all OWASP automated threats. With its advanced technologies like 0062ot fingerprinting, user behavior analysis and machine learning algorithms, it blocks even the most advanced, persistent bots.
Unfortunately, automated threats are here to stay and will only grow in terms of attack patterns and sophistication. Due to the ongoing risk, online businesses need to have accurate and real-time bot detection capabilities to stay protected against the OWASP Top Automated Threats.
Photo courtesy of Pexels user Pixabay
Sandeep Singh
Co-Founder at InfiSecure - Sanitizing Website Traffic
