In a watershed moment for internet traffic patterns, automated bots have officially surpassed human activity for the first time in history, accounting for a staggering 51% of all web traffic in 2024, according to Imperva’s latest Bad Bot Report. “The rise in accessible AI tools has significantly lowered the barrier for entry for cyber attackers, enabling them to create and deploy malicious bots at scale,” noted Imperva analysts in the report. The surge in automated traffic represents a concerning trend, as malicious bots now constitute 37% of all internet traffic—a sharp increase from 32% in 2023. The remaining 14% of automated traffic comes from beneficial bots like search engine crawlers that perform legitimate indexing and monitoring functions. Financial services, telecom, healthcare, and retail industries bear the brunt of these attacks, with APIs becoming particularly vulnerable targets—44% of advanced bot traffic now specifically targets API endpoints rather than traditional web applications. More sophisticated bots employ residential proxies to route traffic through real IP addresses, making them nearly indistinguishable from genuine users. Imperva researchers identified that bad bots are increasingly targeting business-critical functions, with 25% of mitigated attacks specifically aimed at exploiting application business logic. This simple code demonstrates how bots can mask their identity to appear as legitimate Chrome browsers—a tactic used in 46% of all bad bot attacks in 2024. These sophisticated attacks leverage AI technology to mimic human behavior with unprecedented accuracy, making traditional detection methods increasingly obsolete. Cyber Security News is a Dedicated News Platform For Cyber News, Cyber Attack News, Hacking News & Vulnerability Analysis. With years of experience under his belt in Cyber Security, he is covering Cyber Security News, technology and other news. As AI capabilities continue to advance, the line between human and automated traffic will blur further, presenting unprecedented challenges for cybersecurity professionals. These sophisticated bots employ advanced evasion tactics, including browser identity spoofing. This significant milestone marks a fundamental shift in the digital landscape, driven primarily by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) that have dramatically lowered barriers to bot creation and deployment.
This Cyber News was published on cybersecuritynews.com. Publication date: Wed, 16 Apr 2025 13:30:24 +0000