Who is responsible for internet traffic? Humans or Bots?
More than half of all internet traffic now comes from bots, and not humans, according to the annual Imperva Incapsula Bot Traffic Report. In 2016, nearly 48.2 percent of the internet traffic came from humans and 51.8 percent of traffic from the bots.
According to internet live stats, around 40 percent of the world population has an internet connection today as compared to less than one percent in 1995. The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013, it was first billion in 2005, second billion in 2010 and has reached third billion in 2014.
The bad news here is that among bots, most of the traffic comes from bad bots and the good news is that traffic from bad bots has declined over the years from 31 percent in 2012 to 28.9 percent in 2016.
Incapsula examined 16.7+ billion visits to 100,000 randomly-selected domains on its network to tackle the following questions:
While these indiscriminate assaults, according to the report are not nearly as dangerous as targeted attacks, they still have the potential to compromise numerous unprotected websites. Ironically, the owners of these websites tend to ignore the danger of bots the most, wrongfully thinking that their website is too “small” to be attacked.
- How much website traffic is generated by bots?
- How are bad bots used in cyberattacks?
- What drives good bot visits to various websites and services?
- Which are the most active bad and good bots?
Is ‘Bot-Traffic’ a problem?
If you are a businessman and if an internet advertisement is costing you more than you imagined, then you should actually check that whether it is a bot that is clicking your ad or a human being. The majority of digital business owners are facing non-human attackers on a regular basis. Specifically, out of 100,000 domains in the survey, 94.2 percent experienced at least one bot attack over the 90 day period. According to Axios, the Association of National Advertisers and White Ops estimates that bots cost advertisers more than $7 billion in revenue annually. “Most ad fraud occurs in the programmatic space, where ads are purchased through an automated bidding system. Sophisticated ad agencies will place trackers on ads that enable them to only bid on quality inventory, which saves their clients money and makes for more effective ad campaigns.”
While these indiscriminate assaults, according to the report are not nearly as dangerous as targeted attacks, they still have the potential to compromise numerous unprotected websites. Ironically, the owners of these websites tend to ignore the danger of bots the most, wrongfully thinking that their website is too “small” to be attacked.