Bot Protection: Guide to bots, bot attack types and how to stop them

What is bot protection? 

Bot protection refers to any tools, solutions, practices or policies aimed at identifying and blocking any malicious or unwanted bot traffic within an organization’s network. Bots are software programs designed to perform automated tasks on the internet. They can be programmed to automatically crawl websites for data, interact with users through chat interfaces, fill out forms, and perform repetitive tasks. Bots typically perform tasks humans can do, but they are far more efficient, accurate, and functional, at a scale larger than humans.

Having strong bot protection tooling and strategies in place helps to identify ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bot activity, provide visibility into overall network traffic, and provide organizations the power to block bots in accordance with their business’ risk tolerance and internal bot strategies. 

What are the different types of bots? 

Bots types fall into one of two categories: good bots (those that have legitimate purpose, are ‘allowed’ by a business, and are not used for malicious purposes), and bad bots (those that are intended for purely nefarious activities, and are ‘unwanted’ by a business).

Why distinguishing good vs. bad bots matters

A strong bot management solution ensures you can block harmful automation while still allowing ‘good’ bots needed to help you with

• SEO and discovery

• Social sharing

• 3rd-party integrations

• Monitoring and analytics

• Business-critical partner workflows

Blocking good bots can break search visibility, integrations, or tooling, so bot management solutions that can accurately identify ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ bots is essential. 

Common bot attack categories

1. Credential-based attacks: Attacks like credential stuffing, brute-force attempts, and password spraying aim to break into user accounts by testing large volumes of stolen or guessed credentials until one succeeds. 

2. Fraud and abuse attacks: These attacks focus on exploiting business logic through actions like validating stolen credit cards, creating fake accounts, abusing checkout flows, testing gift-card codes, or generating fake ad clicks to manipulate revenue.

3. Scraping and data-extraction attacks: These attacks involve bots harvesting content, pricing, inventory levels, or structured API data at scale, often to gain a competitive advantage or steal proprietary information. 

4. Scalper and hoarder bots automate the purchase or reservation of high-demand items, such as limited-edition products or event tickets, preventing legitimate customers from purchasing the target item. 

5. Layer 7 DDoS attacks or API flooding: These attacks involve massive volumes of requests aimed at degrading performance or taking down services.

6. Vulnerability and reconnaissance attacks: Bots scan applications for vulnerabilities like SQL injection or XSS, enumerating endpoints, or probing misconfigurations in search of weaknesses to exploit.

7. Spam and content pollution: Bots distort user experience, spamming forms, forums, and comment sections or generating fake traffic that pollutes marketing and performance data.

8. API abuse: Bots specifically target backend interfaces to brute-force credentials, replay sessions, rapidly poll sensitive endpoints, or exploit token-handling weaknesses.

9. AI-enhanced bot attacks: An emerging and fast-growing class of AI-enhanced bots uses machine learning to mimic human behavior, bypass traditional defenses, adapt to challenge flows, and evade fingerprinting, making them significantly harder to detect and block.

How to stop bots: Bot mitigation best practices

Bot detection methods have significantly advanced over time to keep up with evolving threats. While some older techniques may still have limited use, modern bot management requires sophisticated, artificial intelligence-driven solutions to keep pace. 

1. Basic (legacy) detection methods

Earlier bot detection relied on basic techniques provided limited protection for your business, such as:

• IP-based filtering: Blocking traffic from known problematic IP ranges can offer some safety by restricting access from specific locations. However, as threats evolve, relying only on IP addresses leaves huge gaps, as bots can easily change their IP.

• User-agent analysis: Examining browser details may detect suspicious patterns, but modern bots now easily bypass these checks. 

• Rate limiting: This approach involves setting maximum request limits on single sources to defend against basic bots. But complex bots designed to circumvent rate checks are able to still access your website. 

2. Intermediate detection techniques

• CAPTCHA challenges: These common tests involve presenting visual or audio tests to distinguish humans from bots. However, relying heavily on CAPTCHAs risks negatively impacting the experience for genuine customers interacting with your digital services.

• Browser fingerprinting: This technique analyzes unique browser details to identify potential bot activity, offering improved accuracy over legacy methods. 

• Mouse movements: Client-side detection techniques, like analyzing mouse movements, clicks, and browsing patterns, can help distinguish human users from automated bots. However, complex bots can mimic even mouse patterns, leaving you vulnerable. 

3, Advanced bot management solutions

While the practices above should still be considered, modern bots require modern solutions. Organizations should strongly consider adopting a modern bot management solution. 

Advanced bot management offers robust protection, combining multiple techniques to swiftly detect threats along the continuum from simple to sophisticated. 

These include:

• Machine learning algorithms:  Artificial intelligence or advanced detection engines continuously analyzes traffic patterns to recognize the signs of bot activity, allowing you to focus on serving authentic users.

• Behavioral analysis: Modern methods evaluate how visitors interact with your website or application. When anomalies indicate bot activity, connections are blocked automatically.

• Device fingerprinting:The tools generate unique identifiers for each device according to its characteristics, permitting more precise bot recognition.

• Dynamic challenges: Advanced solutions apply risk-based tests to users, minimizing disruption for legitimate customers while investigating suspicious traffic.

• Real-time threat intelligence: Modern methods employ up-to-date data on bot trends and tactics for enhanced safeguarding, ensuring your protection measures stay effective against the latest techniques.

• Multi-layered verification: Intelligent bot detection combines various monitoring strategies to provide comprehensive and accurate identification. No single layer can catch all threats, so your business benefits from this multifaceted protection.

• API-specific protection:These tools customize detection to protect 

• application programming interfaces from bot misuse or vulnerabilities. Protecting API access maintains your application's security.

• Custom rule creation:The solutions empower you to define your own criteria for identifying bot traffic, allowing for the detection of unusual patterns relevant to your specific operations and users.

Fastly’s bot management solution

While no single solution can entirely eliminate all threats, your business benefits most from combining various techniques within a robust bot management platform. This comprehensive approach continuously monitors traffic across layers, authenticating users and protecting digital assets.  

Fastly Security provides powerful yet straightforward bot management capabilities by uniting technologies like machine learning, behavioral analysis, and real-time threat intelligence within one cohesive system. It boasts the following features:

• Deep visibility: Fastly provides comprehensive insights into bot traffic visiting your website or application so you can effectively determine patterns in order to strengthen your defenses.

• Precise classification: The Fastly solution accurately separates good bots, malicious bots, and human users, ensuring your business remains protected without blocking beneficial bots.

• Flexible mitigation options: Fastly offers customizable responses to different types of bot traffic. 

• Minimal latency:The security platform delivers bot protection for your business without negatively impacting website performance. Your customers enjoy quick and seamless experiences.

• Rapid integration: The solution works harmoniously with existing security tools and standard workflows, allowing your team to realize benefits without complex set up.

• Real-time protection: Fastly provides instant detection and mitigation of bot threats, keeping your digital offerings safe and secure around the clock.

• Simple compliance: The platform helps your businesses meet various regulatory requirements related to user data protection. 

• Detailed analytics: Fastly's bot management solution offers deep reporting and analysis to allow you to make informed decisions and strengthen your overall security posture.

• Managed services: Fastly provides expert support and management options for teams with limited resources, allowing them to focus on core tasks while maintaining robust protection.

• Easy scalability: The solution easily adapts to increasing traffic and ever-changing bot threats, providing future-proofed protection.

Ready to stop malicious bots? Book your free Fastly Bot Management solution demo and see how this intelligent defense platform protects your business while enhancing the experience for legitimate users.