Fastly Research: Bad Bots Cost Organizations Millions

“Bots are a double-edged sword: they can streamline tasks, but in the wrong hands they become powerful tools for cybercrime, costing businesses millions and eroding customer trust,” said Fastly Security Product Manager Daniel Corbett. “Our new research reveals the impact and scale of these attacks, and underscores the urgent need for robust bot defenses at organizations.”

More than three-fourths (76%) of respondents from organizations across a wide range of industries, including financial services, retail, IT and telecommunications, faced at least one bot attack in the past year, with 43% experiencing multiple bot attacks. Respondents endured an array of bot attacks including malware distribution, click fraud and DDoS attacks. In fact, 91% of respondents believe automated bot attacks are now the “norm for ecommerce organizations.”

Among the survey’s key findings:

• Malware distribution bots were the most common reported threat, affecting 49% of organizations, followed by web scrapers and click fraud bots (tied at 44%), DDoS bots, and spam bots (tied at 41%)
• While 73% of technical staff that deal with security incidents on a daily basis have seen a rise in bot attacks in past year, only 53% of senior management believe that bot attacks are on the rise at their organizations
• Respondents organizations were most concerned about data breaches (48%), financial loss (41%) and business/service disruption (39%) resulting from bot attacks
• 47% of respondents believe their organization could do more to prepare for a bot attack

In addition to these findings, the survey examined the potential use of AI by adversaries to accelerate bot attacks: 45% of survey respondents believed AI would significantly increase the number of bot attacks, while 27% think it will amplify the severity of bot attacks.

About Bot Wars: How Bad Bots are Hurting Businesses

The research was conducted online by independent market research agency Vanson Bourne on behalf of Fastly which surveyed 500 IT and security decision makers in the United States and United Kingdom from organizations with at least 250 employees. The survey was conducted between April 10 – April 18, 2024.