Bot protection

2024-08-29 18:51:38

Executive summary

Malicious bots are a growing threat to businesses, compromising security, and operational integrity. Spam bots spread phishing and malware, leading to data breaches and draining resources, while credential stuffing bots exploit weak or reused passwords to hijack accounts, resulting in unauthorized access, financial losses, and damaged customer trust. Scraping bots pose significant risks by stealing proprietary data, disrupting services, and leading to intellectual property theft and unfair competition.

To combat these threats, a multi-layered security approach is essential. Key strategies include behavioral analysis, rate limiting, IP reputation checks, and the use of CAPTCHAs. Codesealer provides robust protection by encrypting API communications, securing application code, and establishing end-to-end encryption, safeguarding against data breaches and ensuring business continuity.

What are bots?

Bots, short for “robots,” are software applications that perform automated tasks over the internet. Bots can be simple scripts for basic command execution, as well as complex software systems. There are both legitimate and malicious bots in use. The legitimate bots, which are often used for tasks like indexing websites for search engines, are not so interesting for us today. What brings more concern is malicious bots that are designed to carry out harmful activities on the internet.What malicious bots exist today?

Spam Bots

Spam bots send large volumes of unsolicited messages via email, comments, SMS or even make unwanted calls. Email spam bots send mass emails containing advertisements, phishing links, or malware. The goal is often to deceive recipients into clicking on harmful links, downloading malicious attachments, or falling for scams. Spam bots can send out emails or messages that appear legitimate but contain links to fake websites designed to steal login credentials or personal information. On blogs, forums, and social media platforms, spam bots post irrelevant or harmful comments that often include links to malicious websites or promotions for irrelevant products.

Credential Stuffing Bots

Credential stuffing bots are used to hijack user accounts by exploiting reused or weak passwords. Attackers get a list of credentials (usually from previous data breach or leak) that is passed to credential stuffing bots programmed in a way to test all login info on a wide range of websites, such as social media platforms, email providers, online banking sites, and e-commerce stores. The bots can try thousands or even millions of login attempts in a very short period, eventually finding a match.

Scraping Bots

These bots extract large amounts of data from websites. While data scraping can have legitimate purposes, such as gathering publicly available information for research, when used without permission or for unethical reasons, scraping bots can cause significant harm. Scraping bots often target APIs as they are the main channel of data flow from backend to the user interface, and malicious bots can exploit APIs in ways that violate terms of service, steal sensitive information, and disrupt services.

Attackers first identify APIs that provide access to valuable data, such as user information, financial data, product listings, or proprietary content. This can include public APIs, as well as private or semi-private APIs that may require authentication. Malicious bots are often designed to overcome API security measures, such as API rate limits by rotating IP addresses or using distributed botnets to avoid detection and bypass rate limits, stealing API keys or tokens, or solving CAPTCHAs or using CAPTCHA-solving services to automate the process. Once access is gained, the bots make repeated requests to the API to extract data. This can be done rapidly, pulling down large volumes of data in a short period.

DDoS Bots

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) bots are among the most disruptive types of malicious bots. Their goal is to disrupt the target’s operations, whether it’s an online retailer, a financial service, or even a government website. DDoS bots overwhelm a target website or service with a massive volume of requests, far more than it can handle, causing the site to slow down or become entirely unavailable. This type of attacks are typically carried out by botnets, which are networks of compromised devices (computers, IoT devices, etc.) that have been infected with malware and are remotely controlled by the attacker.

Examples of Malicious API Scraping Incidents

Social Media Scraping: In recent years, several social media platforms have faced incidents where bots scraped user data through APIs, leading to massive data leaks. For example, millions of Facebook profiles were scraped using APIs, and the data was used in political campaigns without users’ consent.
E-commerce Scraping: Competitors or third-party resellers may scrape e-commerce APIs to gain real-time insights into pricing and inventory levels. This data can be used to manipulate prices or stock availability in their favor, harming the original business.
Financial Market Manipulation: Bots scraping APIs from financial platforms can access sensitive market data faster than human traders, potentially using it for high-frequency trading or insider trading, leading to market manipulation and unfair advantages.

What are the risks?

Malicious bots, including spam bots, credential stuffing bots, and scraping bots, pose significant risks to businesses and individuals. Spam bots spread phishing attempts and malware, leading to potential data breaches and reputation damage. They also drain resources by overwhelming systems with unwanted content, which can lead to legal issues if they violate anti-spam laws. Credential stuffing bots exploit reused passwords to take over accounts, resulting in unauthorized access, data breaches, financial losses, and a loss of customer trust. This can force companies to increase security spending and face legal consequences. Scraping bots steal proprietary data and content, leading to intellectual property theft and unfair competition. They can also overload servers, causing service disruptions, slower performance, and lost revenue.

How to detect and protect against these bots?

Detection starts with behavioral analysis, where unusual patterns such as rapid requests, abnormal interaction times, or repetitive actions are flagged as potential bot activity. Rate limiting is another effective measure, as it restricts the number of requests from a single IP or account within a set time frame, making it easier to identify and block bot traffic. Additionally, using CAPTCHAs on login pages and forms helps distinguish between human users and automated bots. Incorporating IP reputation services and blacklisting known malicious IP addresses further enhances detection efforts. Honeypots, which are hidden fields or links that only bots typically interact with, can also be deployed to trap and block these automated threats.

Codesealer offers protection against malicious bot activities that target APIs and source code of the service. By encrypting all API communications, Codesealer conceals valuable information from potential attackers, obscuring API payloads and responses to prevent direct access. This encryption creates a secure communication channel that protects the integrity and confidentiality of data as it travels between the client and server.

Codesealer’s multi-layered security approach enhances protection beyond the API level. Our client-side Bootloader ensures application code integrity before execution, preventing unauthorized modifications. Once the application is running, it establishes a secure end-to-end (E2E) tunnel that encrypts all data, rendering it inaccessible to attackers. This comprehensive protection not only guards against API-specific threats but also secures application code and data.

With Codesealer’s advanced security measures, high-profile incidents related to APIs could have been mitigated. Our solution would have shielded many companies from the fallout of data breaches and legal repercussions by maintaining robust API encryption and security.