Today’s internet is facing a rising tide of unwanted traffic generated by bots. According to Imperva’s ‘Bad Bot 2024’ report, almost half of web traffic already comes from bots, of which as much as 32% is made up of so-called ‘bad’ bots, which cause chaos and generate serious threats to users and businesses. In an interview with Artur Cyganek, BotGuard Regional Director, Eastern Europe, we take a look at the evolution of bots, their impact on businesses and the latest methods to protect against this increasingly sophisticated threat.
Brandsit: According to data from Imperva’s ‘Bad Bot 2024’ report , almost 50% of web traffic is already generated by bots. Since 2018, the share of so-called ‘bad’ bots in web traffic has been increasing successively, currently amounting to around 32% of all web traffic. What are the latest threats from bots on the internet?
Artur Cyganek, BotGuard: Today, bots are more or less able to emulate human-generated traffic. This allows them to bypass basic security measures that were effective in the past, but unfortunately are no longer so today. In general, the threats remain similar, but the ways and techniques of bots are changing. An area where the dynamics of change are particularly high is in digital advertising in the broadest sense, specifically the problem of the percentage of adverts that are ‘clickable’ by bots, causing them to miss their target audience.
Brandsit: How do BotGuard’s solutions help companies protect themselves against these threats?
Artur Cyganek, BotGuard: BotGuard analyses traffic arriving at web servers in real time and, in accordance with the adopted rules (companies can determine themselves which traffic they consider undesirable), blocks traffic defined as unwanted or generated by malicious bots. As a result, ‘good’ traffic reaches the web servers and ‘bad’ traffic is blocked before it can reach them.
Brandsit: How do developments in technology, such as AI, affect the evolution of bots?
Artur Cyganek, BotGuard: Thanks to AI, an intermediate internet user can generate unwanted traffic using created bots themselves. Unfortunately, current technology makes it easy to create harmful bots and carry out unethical and even criminal activities online.
Brandsit: In your opinion, are businesses aware of the risks associated with unwanted traffic generated by bots?
Artur Cyganek, BotGuard: Unfortunately, many organisations and businesses do not analyse the traffic on their web servers and therefore have no knowledge of what traffic is there. The largest companies and organisations have a greater awareness and knowledge, but medium-sized and smaller organisations are often unaware of the scale of the threats and risks associated with traffic generated by malicious bots in their web environment.
Brandsit: According to the aforementioned report, the industries most frequently attacked by bad bots are retail, the travel industry and finance. How do bots affect companies’ productivity and operating costs? What features of BotGuard’s solutions are key from a customer perspective?
Artur Cyganek, BotGuard: Bots can overload the infrastructure, generating unwanted or even harmful traffic – we are talking about 30% of all incoming traffic. This can significantly affect the performance of the infrastructure or lead to higher costs for hardware, power, air conditioning and administration (whether you use a rented web environment or have it in your own data centre). BotGuard focuses on analysing traffic arriving at the web servers and blocking unwanted traffic generated by bots. The customer has the option of defining what traffic it considers good/wanted and what traffic it considers bad/unwanted, as this definition may vary in different business and government sectors depending on the level of risk accepted in those organisations.
Artur Cyganek
Regional Director, Eastern Europe, BotGuard
Artur Cyganek is an expert with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, specialising in the area of cyber security. For 15 years, he managed teams in international IT companies, including Acronis, AppSense and Citrix, where he served as Country Manager in Poland. Currently, as Regional Director at BotGuard, he is responsible for market development, building partner channels and relationships with key clients in Eastern Europe and Turkey. He graduated from Wrocław University of Technology and Wrocław University of Economics and holds an MBA from the Leon Koźmiński Academy in Warsaw.
