HALF OF INTERNET TRAFFIC CAME FROM BOTS IN 2022

Nearly half of all internet traffic came from bots in 2022. This is according to Imperva, a leading cyber security company.

As reported by Security Magazine:

A new report reveals that in 2022, 47.4% of all internet traffic came from bots, a 5.1% increase over the previous year. The same report showed that human traffic, at 52.6%, decreased to its lowest level in eight years.

This week, Imperva released its 10th annual Bad Bot Report, a global analysis of automated bot traffic across the internet. The annual report provides security and business leaders with information about the evolution of bot technology and automated traffic. This year’s report also documents milestones in the evolution of bad bot technology.

In most cases, bot traffic is usually malicious and is becoming increasingly sophisticated:

For the fourth consecutive year, the volume of bad bot traffic — malicious automated software applications capable of high-speed abuse, misuse and attacks — grew to 30.2%, a 2.5% increase over 2021.[...]

In 2022, the proportion of bad bots classified as “advanced” accounted for 51.2% of all bad bot traffic. In comparison, the level of bad bot sophistication in 2021 was 25.9%.

Bots were also increasingly used in account takeover (ATO) attacks. These increased 155% in 2022, while 15% of all login attempts in the past 12 months were classified as account takeover related. 

The business sectors most affected by bad bot attacks on their websites were gaming with 58.7% of attacks, travel (24.7%), retail (21%) and financial services (12.7%).

The bot traffic of 13 countries was  also analysed in the report. Of these, Germany had the most bot traffic, with 68.6%. Ireland had 45.1%, Singapore 43.1%, and the U.S. 32.1%.

Mobile Safari was the most common browser used by bad bots in 2022, with one-in-five using it.