I recently hosted a webinar with Forrester analyst Sandy Carielli to detail some of the challenges facing CISOs today. We not only discussed how to mitigate many of these threats, like bad bots, but to maximize their ROI as well. After all, with declining economic conditions, being able to show value and savings is a key differentiating factor for many enterprises and security professionals.
Tired of Reading? Watch the full Forrester webinar here
Bots are enabling cyberattacks more than ever before
Cyberattacks only continue to increase, and unfortunately they won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Malicious bots and botnets have become a prime enabler for many cybercriminals conducting large-scale attacks. For instance, Arkose Labs research found that bot-driven attacks were up 352% on financial services during the second half of 2022 alone.
This increase tells part of the broader story, especially considering some of the following data points:
- 20% of logins are account takeover attempts
- There has been an 85% increase in ATOs and fake accounts
- Malicious traffic is up to 75% during peak period, which varies based on industry
One thing that is giving rise to many of these bot attacks is the increased popularity of CaaS offerings. Through CaaS, cybercriminals can purchase sophisticated bots that they can leverage for attacks against enterprises of all sizes. These offerings enable cybercriminals to do some of the following:
- Perform account takeovers
- Conduct credential stuffing and DDoS attacks
- Create fake accounts and other forms of identity theft
- Send phishing and spam messages, distribute malware
- Direct international revenue share fraud (IRSF) attempts (also known as SMS Toll Fraud)
- Steal personal data and credentials for user accounts, like users’ email addresses and passwords
Adding to the challenges posed by these sophisticated attacks is that CISOs are often asked to do more with less and are under scrutiny with their spending. Whether it is the current economic outlook, hesitancy to invest in new solutions, and even the lack of skilled workers through the widening skills gap, CISOs need to be nimble and innovative in the face of rising cybersecurity threats.
To learn more about cybercriminals’ advanced bot tactics, along with insights and analysis from Forrester, watch the full webinar here.
Critical capabilities needed to win against bots
Traditional, or legacy, cybersecurity solutions are no longer effective when confronted with many of the advanced tools available to cybercriminals. Many of these tools now include malicious bot activity and botnets that are enabled with AI and ML and purpose-built to hunt for vulnerabilities.
When it comes to meeting cybercriminals head on, both human and bot, there are a few things that are critical to have in modern bot management solutions. Bots need to be detected and a solution needs to be scalable. Cybercriminals often have the same capabilities as many enterprises and can scale their attack accordingly. Enterprises need a solution that can keep up to these threats while having the capability to differentiate between human activity and that of a malicious bot or botnet. Analytics and reporting are also critical as many times it is hard to distinguish between user behavior and a low-and-slow attack, so having insights on how your solution is working to detect and defend against bots is important to analyze.
Furthermore, it is not enough to only detect a bot. These threats must be mitigated as well and enterprises need multiple tools in their arsenal – like MFA or challenges – to eliminate them.
Additionally, similar to other business opportunities, cybercriminals conduct their attacks in order to make a profit. That is why it is imperative that enterprises and their security teams proactively work to remove the economic incentive to cybercriminals. This can be accomplished by making cybercriminals invest more resources — manpower and/or capital — into their attack. Once they get bogged down they will realize that their attack is no longer financially tenable and will look elsewhere. This is where Arkose Labs shines.
Arkose Labs is here to help fight bots and maximize ROI
Arkose Labs’ complete platform, Arkose Bot Manager, provides enterprises with the full spectrum detection and response capabilities, including a defense in depth, that they need to mitigate today’s cyber threats. We help enterprises cut through the noise of increased bot traffic and gain real-time insight into bot behavior.
Our variable Arkose MatchKey challenges are easy for legitimate users to solve while cybercriminals looking to automate their attacks will be unable to complete them. In fact, many good users will not be challenged at all. These MatchKey challenges require cybercriminals to invest more of their resources into an attack, thus ruining their economic incentive.
We are also very intentional with the information that we share with the enterprises that we partner with. Arkose Labs is not a “black box” but rather we share information with others in our network. In this current economic environment it is important to prove that the solution you are investing in is actually working or not and this transparency is something we pride ourselves on.
I would encourage you to watch the full Forrester webinar for more information on this topic. If stopping bad bots and removing the economic drivers of cybercrime (while maximizing ROI for the business) are on your list of priorities, be sure to book a meeting with us today. My team would love to hear from you.
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