Bot protection

A bot is an automated software program designed to perform specific tasks on the internet. While some bots are legitimate (e.g. search engine crawlers or customer service chatbots), malicious bots are used for harmful purposes such as data scraping, account takeovers, or spamming.

Malicious bots can facilitate various types of fraud, including:

• Credential stuffing: Trying leaked username/password pairs across websites to hijack accounts.
• Fake account creation: Flooding systems with fake sign-ups to abuse promotions or create fake identities.
• Carding: Testing stolen credit card numbers on payment forms.
• Click fraud: Generating fake clicks on ads to drain advertiser budgets.
• Inventory hoarding: Automating product purchases (e.g. sneakers or event tickets) to resell at a markup.

To combat malicious bots, organizations use various tools and techniques, such as:

• CAPTCHAs (e.g., “I’m not a robot” challenges)
• Rate limiting to control request volume from a single source
• Device fingerprinting to identify and track suspicious clients
• Behavioral analytics to detect non-human interaction patterns
• JavaScript challenges and browser validation to detect headless bots
• Bot management platforms (e.g., Cloudflare Bot Management, PerimeterX)

Effective bot protection is essential for safeguarding user data, maintaining platform integrity, and preventing fraud at scale.