The capability to detect, manage, and mitigate bot-based requests has become of utmost importance as cyber attackers become more automated. Edgio, a company created by the merging of Limelight Networks, Yahoo Edgecast, and Layer0, has unveiled its own bot management service in response to this expanding threat. In order to compete with competing services from Web application firewall (WAF) providers and Internet infrastructure providers, the service focuses on leveraging machine learning and the company's Web security capacity to enable granular policy controls.
Bot management is not just about preventing automated attacks, but also identifying and monitoring good bots such as search bots and performance monitoring services. According to Richard Yew, senior director of product management for security at Edgio, “You definitely need the security solution but you also want visibility to be able to monitor good bot traffic.” In 2022, for example, the number of application and API attacks more than doubled, growing by 137%, according to Internet infrastructure firm Akamai.
The impact of bots on businesses can be seen in areas such as inventory-hoarding attacks or ad fraud. As a result, bot management should involve all aspects of an organization – not just security. Sandy Carielli, principal analyst at Forrester Research noted that “bot management is not just about security being the decision-makers. If you're dealing with a lot of inventory-hoarding attacks, your e-commerce team is going to want to say in. If you're dealing with a lot of ad fraud, your marketing team will want to be in the room.”
Bot management systems typically identify the source of Web or API requests and then use policies to determine what to allow, what to deny, and which requests represent potentially interesting events or anomalies. Nowadays, 42% of all Internet traffic comes from automated systems — not humans — according to data from Imperva. To deal with this, Edgio inspects traffic at the edge of the network and only allows ‘clean’ traffic through its network. This helps stop attacks before they can impact other parts of the network. Content delivery networks (CDNs) such as Akamai, Cloudflare, and Fastly have also adopted bot management features as well.
Bot management is clearly becoming a more crucial issue for enterprises as automated attacks increase in frequency. Organizations require all-encompassing solutions to address this issue, involving teams from marketing, security, and e-commerce. Employing such technologies enables organizations to safeguard their resources from dangerous bot attacks while keeping track of reputable good bots.
