Filter out malicious bots in real-time is a serious threat to the security and performance of your business’s websites, apps, APIs, and customer login flows. They are often automated scripts designed with malicious intent to cause disruption, steal data, and conduct attacks like brute-force and credential stuffing. They are also hard to detect, because they can change their behavior to evade detection.
Effective bot detection requires more than rate limiting or CAPTCHAs. It must be based on intelligence and behavioral analysis to detect sophisticated bots that can adapt to defenses, such as mouse movements and time delays, and even mimic human click patterns to avoid detection.
How to Filter Out Malicious Bots in Real-Time with Automation
Identifying bots involves analyzing incoming traffic in the context of your unique business environment and risk profile. Sudden spikes in traffic, consistent recurring traffic from the same IP addresses, and unusual page access patterns are indicative of bot activity.
Additionally, bots tend to interact with web pages and applications at much higher volumes than human visitors, and are more likely to click quickly or skip to other parts of a website. Detecting these behavioral differences requires a robust set of tools, such as device fingerprinting (analyzing information like browser settings, installed plugins, screen resolution, operating system, and hardware devices), traffic spoofing, and anomalous mouse movement and navigation patterns to help distinguish bots from humans. This is done in real-time to prevent false positives that can create friction for legitimate users and drive away loyal customers.