The bots are real and they are creating fake network traffic all over the internet. CHEQ, a Go-to-Market Security company, recently published a report on all the bots creating fake network traffic. Fake network traffic is a problem for several reasons: fake interest in sales, fake successful marketing campaigns, fake interest in the business, and now cybersecurity.
Sales, marketing, business interest
Fake network traffic can lead to a false belief of interest in the business. This high interest can lead to making costly decisions based on fake data. These decisions can quickly impact a business and set them up for failure.
Impact on cybersecurity
Fake network traffic impacts cybersecurity in multiple ways. If the business network isn’t capable of proper load balancing or isn’t capable of the total amount of traffic, the business website may become unusable or even go offline. Either of these occurrences can impact legitimate customers from purchasing, registering for services, or legitimate browsing of the website. These customers and potential customers may never return.
Another serious cybersecurity impact could be the exfiltration of data, otherwise known as a data breach. This too can cause customers to never come back when they learn their data is or might be stolen. The business may also be liable for damages to those impacted or need to provide some kind of compensation.This is on top of the costs for the cyber investigation and the remediation. Oftentimes small businesses do not survive after a data breach.
One more impact on cybersecurity is the hidden cost time and resources of the IT team and cybersecurity team. With all the focus on the increased network flow and subsequent monitoring of this higher traffic, the IT team and cybersecurity team will need to be more focused and spend more time ensuring the traffic is legitimate and not overwhelming the network. Extra time spent and extra resources used, means increased expenses and less ability to perform their other job duties. This can lead to higher technology costs and employee costs.
Fighting the bots
Unfortunately the bots will always be there, it is how the internet works, but becoming better at identifying legitimate bots vs malicious bots can be tricky, but is necessary. It is important to have a bot strategy within your IT infrastructure.
CSO Online has provided 12 steps that can assist in mitigating fake network traffic. Some of their suggestions are:
- Deny all types of network traffic by default and only allow specific types of traffic
- Implement a managed solution
- Patch and update all components of the IT infrastructure often
For more suggestions on defeating those bots, checkout CSO Online’s article Fake network traffic is on the rise — here’s how to counter it.
So remember, the bots are real and need to be dealt with.
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