Bot attacks are resilient in nature and can hide in the enterprise’s IT infrastructure for weeks without being discovered. Businesses need to have robust digital security hygiene practices to detect bot attacks and mitigate them effectively.
Bad bots are prolific attack vectors of cybercriminals because it is difficult to detect them. These attack entities have unique characteristics, such as how they are set up, grow, and exist, which makes them difficult to detect and can cause destruction.
A recent study by Netacea titled “Bot Management Review 2022” suggests that bots can remain undetected for an extended period of 16 weeks on average; the time span has increased by two weeks since the last year’s report. Here are a few ways that CISOs should consider implementing to efficiently detect and mitigate the bad bots:
JavaScript helps in bot threat detection
JavaScript is one of the latest techniques to differentiate between a good bot, and a bad bot, and human users. These techniques are able to extract information about how bots and humans engage with the web page throughout the fraud detection process. Mouse movements and keystrokes are a few ways to differentiate between bots and humans. Following are a few other techniques that JavaScript can deploy to differentiate:
- Evaluating HTTP header
- Test the browser type (usually, bots utilize the same browser as a cover)
- Identification of robotic mouse movers and keystroke speed across the webpage.
Also Read: Enterprises Are Facing Bot Attacks Owing to Cyber security Overconfidence
One of the pitfalls is that even if JavaScript suspects a user as a bot, the platform cannot be completely sure. Hence enterprises should not block the user immediately, instead should consider sending a different challenge to the bot. Well, if the challenge is sent again to the real user, it hampers the customer experience. 97% of the Netcea survey report respondents suggest that bot attacks hamper customer experience.
Missing tokens blow the cover of bots
Bot detection and mitigation tools send challenges to the incoming requests to differentiate between bots and users. If the results of the challenges have a missing token or fingerprint, it means bots were not able to finish the challenge. The system can create an alert if the bot is not able to accomplish the challenge. But with this technique, there are higher chances of bot security alerts being just noise.
Implementing proxy servers
CISOs should consider designing and implementing multiple strategies simultaneously to protect enterprise devices from bot attacks. Enterprises need to be vigilant about detection, and focus on changing passwords is a crucial part of the threat detection and response process. Implementing proxy servers assist businesses in adding an additional layer of security to protect the IP address of the device or system that processes all the internet requests. Passing all the incoming internet traffic through a proxy server will help businesses to track and control web access to detect botnet incidents.
Install and update patches
Enterprises should not ignore the notifications that the devices, applications, and operating systems send to update the latest versions. It is crucial for businesses to update the new patches as a part of their digital security.
Malicious actors leverage known vulnerabilities and infiltrate business IT networks with threat vectors. The system manufacturers launch new algorithm versions to mitigate hacks and bot attacks that the devices are vulnerable to. Updating all the devices, applications, and software regularly; to protect IT infrastructure from vulnerabilities should be a crucial step in enterprise security hygiene practices. It is one of the most efficient ways to execute vulnerability testing to understand the attack surface areas that cybercriminals can bank on.
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