Protecting Your Startup Online Business from Costly Bot Attacks

Today, there are many companies on the market claiming to offer the best bot detection and prevention solutions. But is that really true?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of solutions available on the market today are unable to keep up with the times. In recent years, bots have undergone significant evolution. Bot operators use proxy networks, anti-detection browsers, stealth plugins, and DevTools to appear and behave like humans.

Most modern solutions cannot handle this. An outdated detection system must allow an automatic request to find any suspicious activity that slips under the radar. By then, it's already too late. Preventing carding via bots and other attacks requires a modern solution, and that is exactly what we will detail in this guide.

We will look not only at why modern bot management is critical, but also which bot protection elements are outdated and which approaches are effective today. We'll examine how KYC checks help and what else you need to consider. So, let's get started:

Why Do You Need Bot Management?

Before we look at modern bot management solutions and their effectiveness, it's necessary to understand why these tools are so important.

Bad Bots Can Reduce Conversion Rates

Did you know that one in ten users will not return to your site if they have a bad experience? And if bots have flooded your site, the user experience will be very poor because your site will run slowly and people won't be able to purchase the items they actually want.

If that's not enough, many modern bot management solutions use CAPTCHA, which further degrades the user experience. We're sure you've all had to click on a traffic light or bicycle before making a purchase. This not only slows down the process but can also cause you to miss out on what you really wanted to buy. That's why you need an effective bot management solution that won't let your business suffer.

Your Budget Can Take a Big Hit

If you are funding and supporting all the non-human traffic on your online channels, you are essentially spending money on things that will never lead to real leads, sales, or engagement.

There are many ways bad bots can cost you money. The solutions offered on the market today are typically very expensive to set up, which can be another hurdle. Also, did you know that downtime due to a denial-of-service attack can range from 1 million to 5 million rubles per hour? That's why you need a bot management solution that prevents bots from infiltrating your systems.

Bad Bots Are Bad News for Everyone

As you can see, bad bots can cause frustration for both your customers and your entire team. They cost a lot of money and ruin the consumer experience, so it's easy to see why companies should prioritize bot management.

Why Don't Legacy Solutions Work for Bot Management?

There are a number of problems with the bot solutions available on the market today. One of the main issues is that these systems work based on historical data, using past trends and actions to determine if bots are on your site. This means that by the time you receive a warning about bot activity, it's already too late. You need a solution that prevents bots from their very first attack.

One of the main problems with many solutions on the market today is that they use CAPTCHA, which is an incredibly outdated and ineffective approach. CAPTCHA is a fraud detection service. You're probably familiar with it. You are asked to select on images 'all boats' or 'all squares with crosswalks'.

CAPTCHA presents a real problem because it forces the user to do all the heavy lifting, and if that's not bad enough, modern bots are sophisticated enough to effectively bypass such measures. Your customers will have to use a CAPTCHA proxy just to be able to compete with bots.

It must be acknowledged that bots have advanced significantly over the years and now use a range of approaches to appear human. They easily bypass CAPTCHA, meaning such a solution is ineffective. Moreover, these tasks can create more problems for human users than for bots. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to buy concert tickets and missing out because you have to click on squares that contain boats!

This is bad news for your business too. After all, customers will feel frustrated because of the poor user experience on your site and because they never manage to buy the items they need.

We also advise staying away from Web Application Firewalls — another big problem with modern bot management solutions! WAFs were one of the earliest tools for protecting web applications. However, time moves on. Bot operators have figured out how to bypass web application firewalls.

Bot Management That Works

There are companies offering effective and simple solutions for detecting and eliminating bots. They will protect your business from the harmful and often underestimated impact of malicious automation on the web, APIs, and mobile devices.

Bots are just one of the many types of privacy threats that need to be monitored closely to protect sensitive data. Look for cloud services and built-in 24/7 customer support to avoid putting extra strain on your internal team. An effective bot management solution includes three key areas: client interrogation, mitigation actions, and threat intelligence.

Below we explain each of them so you can better understand why some solutions are better than others on the market today:

1. Client Interrogation

Make sure your chosen solution checks every client request for immutable traces of automation that remain after a bot interacts with any of your applications. This is all done without negatively impacting the user, as the client interrogation process is completely invisible to humans.

This stage checks for headless browsers and automation frameworks. Through inference, it determines whether the request came from a bad bot, a human, or even a good bot. All this can be done without letting a single request through. As mentioned, one problem with many modern solutions is that they must let requests through in order to analyze them. By then, it's too late and damage has already been done.

The best companies also use their own polymorphic method to obfuscate their sensors, thwarting any reverse engineering attempts.

2. Mitigation Actions

Next, we move to mitigation actions. Earlier we mentioned that many companies use CAPTCHA, which forces the user to do all the work, leading to a lot of frustration. Instead, they should implement client-side cryptographic challenges. This means the client must solve increasingly difficult asymmetric cryptographic tasks as proof of work.

The best have designed their solution so that all the work falls on bots. A modern solution designed to trick bot operators while ensuring that bot attacks are simply too costly to carry out at scale allows preventing bot attacks not only now but in the future.

They also fight automation with automation. This means that launching a bot attack on your business will exhaust computer resources and become incredibly expensive. As a result, hackers will no longer want to attack your business because they'll realize it's not worth it.

3. Threat Intelligence

Another important component of a modern service is threat intelligence. Threat intelligence involves a deep assessment of any traffic patterns and countermeasures.

To do this, companies automatically evaluate sensor and request data. Software-based KYC checks can also be included here. It can help verify identity digitally and ensure information security. Any findings and conclusions are added to the client interrogation process in real time, without needing code updates. This means you can receive constant feedback and instantly update your protection.

Final Thoughts on Bot Detection and Protecting Your Business

So, that's everything you need to know about the bot threat and how to prevent them from destroying your startup business. Choose your solution carefully. It should consist of the three elements mentioned above: client interrogation, mitigation actions, and threat intelligence.