Elon Musk’s ranting and raving over internet bots on Twitter might not have been unfounded. According to the 2023 Imperva Bad Bot Report, automated bots comprised 47% of all web traffic in 2022. Furthermore, the study showed overall bot traffic increased by over 5% from the previous year and snowballs every day. So, what does an internet dominated by spam and bad bots mean for the experience of everyday web browsers?
What does the increasing amount of internet bots mean for you?
“This is a concerning trend for businesses as advanced bad bots use the latest evasion techniques,” researchers said. “[The bots] closely mimic human behavior to evade detection by cycling through random IPs, […] and changing identities.”
Bad bots can be a dangerous issue for unsuspecting people. For example, they can scrape your information, such as your email, and spam those accounts with malicious links. Imperva reports bad bots made up over 30% of all internet traffic in 2022. These malicious automated processes can put your private information at risk, an increasingly common issue as the years go by.
And the issue is exacerbated for those who own a website. According to the search engine optimization company Yoast, internet bots could be a debilitating issue for your website. Malicious bots can brute force their way into your system by acting like a real person to steal sensitive data. They can also employ a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which floods your server to crash your website.
Additionally, Yoast says they can have an environmental impact by forcing processes that consume energy. Though each account only takes a small amount of energy, bad bots are innumerable, and each can tirelessly repeat its task. For example, Yoast reports the video game news website GameSpot produced more CO2 per visit in 2022 than any other website. It created so much carbon emissions that 26 trees would need a year to soak up the pollutants.
Not all of them are bad, though.
Not all bots are made equal. For example, “good” bots can still access Twitter’s API, although for a price. After all, bots are just software that completes a specific task at their most basic function. According to Imperva’s report, good bot traffic made up just over 17% of all internet traffic in 2023. They can be handy and efficient tools that help improve people’s experience on the web.
For example, Google, and other search engines, use a bot called web crawlers or spiders. They scour the internet using an algorithm to determine how websites rank for search results. The process of maximizing your website’s use of these bots is called search engine optimization. Without bots, getting your website to the top of Google’s search results would be challenging.
Cybersecurity is more crucial than ever.
According to Reuters, the cybersecurity industry has steadily grown due to the shifting business landscape. Global cybersecurity spending will likely hit nearly $220 billion in 2023, largely due to the increased risks associated with bots.
Akshara Bassi, an analyst at technology market research firm Counterpoint Research, says the increasingly online world demands more online safety. Bassi said, “Cybersecurity has become more crucial than ever due to the rapid digital transformation taking place across industries.”
