A bot is a software program that often works by itself on the internet to perform the same kinds of actions as humans do. The report, produced by California-based internet security company Imperva, found that 49.6 percent of worldwide internet traffic ( 互联网流量） came from bots in 2023, while from human users fell to 50.4 percent. Imperva's study also found that web traffic linked to "bad bots" grew to 32 percent in 2023, a rise of 30.2 percent from 2022. Nanhi Singh, a security advisor at Imperva, said that bots are currently one of growing threats facing almost every industry.
Bots are generally designed to visit websites and independently search for many kinds of online information. They are able to operate at much greater speeds than humans and can process repeated searches and process large amounts of data. Online search advisor Yoast notes that some bots are considered good because they can be useful to individuals through tools such as OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT. Some others are considered malicious, because they are trained to hack, or break into network computer systems. These kinds of bots pretend themselves as humans and collect private data or financial information that can be used to commit crimes. And some bots are even designed to spread misinformation and false news.
The study also suggested that some countries have a much bigger problem with bad bots than others. Web traffic linked to bad bots in 2023 accounted for 71 percent in Ireland while Germany was next, with 67.5 percent. The percentage of Mexico and the USA was reported to be 42.8 percent and 35.4 percent respectively. Imperva even reported that bad bot activity would lead to account takeovers, which increased 10 percent in 2023 over 2022. The highest number of account takeovers – 36.8 percent–happened in the financial services industry. Next was the travel industry, with 11.5 percent, followed by business services at eight percent.
Nanhi Singh said the problem is likely to worsen in coming years to the point where such bots would exist everywhere. She urged organizations to introduce bot management and security tools in an effort to limit automated traffic and prevent dangerous account takeovers.
