Exploring the Scope of the Botnet Threat

Gone are the days when an organization’s latest security headache was a high school-aged hacker with a dial-up connection and a hankering to get into some mischief. Modern attacks are far more sophisticated, and the people behind them are often large groups of hackers with malicious intentions, whether those be to steal state secrets or just to steal a lot of your money. It’s also not just humans looking to infiltrate your data. Attackers now use automated attacks, or botnets, to cover the most possible ground in as little time as possible.

This means you need to secure your environment against automated, persistent attacks. Implementing bot protection can help by matching automation with automation, preventing you from getting bogged down in the noise. This type of protection can help stop a DDoS attack, a problem that’s notoriously difficult to prevent, credential stuffing, and other automated attacks bogging down your applications.

Botnets are a Growing Problem

One of the easiest ways to start a botnet is to infiltrate a poorly-secured network and install malware. The group of connected computers can then be used by an attacker to generate traffic, send more malware to other networks, or overload websites with spam and DDoS attacks. As organizations struggle to keep pace with the ever-increasing number of new exploits, more networks are vulnerable to attack. Employee training has also failed to keep up. Most new attacks can be traced to human error; the attacker uses social engineering to initially infiltrate the network.

The Internet of Things (IoT) also has a significant role in the growing botnet problem. The vast majority of IoT devices are connected to a Wi-Fi network, and many users do not take steps to secure their devices. Often, IoT devices come with default usernames and passwords that users do not change once they connect those devices to their home or office networks, leaving the device highly susceptible to an attack. Once one device has been compromised, it is a simple matter for a skilled attacker to infect the rest of the devices on a network. This network can then be used as a botnet.

Botnets Pose a Wide-Reaching Threat

Considering the low investment required to create a botnet, attackers have developed a variety of uses for them. Some well-known attacks include:

• Credential stuffing uses bots to automate the process of throwing usernames and passwords at a wall to see what sticks, in a manner of speaking. The botnet receives a long list of credentials, and the bots try each one until something works and the attacker can access an organization’s applications and data.
• DDoS, or a Distributed Denial of Service attack, works by spamming a website or application with traffic, which causes the target to stop responding or crash. As a result, legitimate traffic cannot get through, and the attacker can hold the target for ransom. Organizations often fold quickly as a lack of legitimate traffic has a detrimental impact on normal business operations.
• Vulnerability Scanning is an example of a useful cybersecurity tool that gets into the wrong hands. A botnet can run automated vulnerability scans on your environment to find the weakest points usable for illegitimate access. The automated botnet can run these scans very quickly, making it an appealing strategy for an attacker.
• Clickfraud uses bots to artificially inflate traffic statistics, a particular problem for pay-per-click ads. Organizations paying for clicks end up with a very large bill and very few new customers following this type of attack, which may be carried out by someone acting on behalf of a competitor or ad hosting company.
• Cryptojacking, also known as malicious cryptomining, occurs when an attacker uses a compromised network to access someone’s computer resources. The resources are then used to mine cryptocurrency at the expense of the computer owner rather than the blockchain recipient.

The varied utility of bots makes them an effective tool for attackers. Combined with the insufficient security protocols of many organizations, this has increased their popularity over time.

Managing the Bot Security Problem

Bot protection solutions can protect websites against DDoS, credential stuffing, and similar automated attacks. The best way to beat an automated attack is to automate your solution. Implementing bot protection solutions can help by independently responding to typical automated attacks, which reduces the number of bots attacking your network and decreases the amount of basic work your security team needs to do. As a result, the team can focus on more complex attacks and security issues, or it can work on important maintenance tasks that might be otherwise neglected.

Not only will your business’s outlook improve due to an improved security posture, but it will also reap the financial rewards of improved resource utilization and fraud protection. Although bots pose a growing security risk, you can reduce the number of attacks with bot detection technology that does not restrict your normal, legitimate traffic. Bots are a problem, but they shouldn’t be the only thing on which your organization focuses.