Report reveals 4 key impacts of bots on business

Bots are reshaping -commerce businesses in unexpected ways. Malicious bot attacks grab headlines. But good bots can improve operations and reduce customer friction, making them essential business tools. But how are bots impacting businesses on the ground? Kount commissioned a bot impact survey of hundreds of e-commerce businesses to find out. The result: Bot attacks are widespread and severe, and businesses are rushing to respond. Download the 2020 Bot Landscape and Impact Report 1. New attacks target the complete customer journey Malicious bots are broadening their attacks beyond the front door of businesses operations. And while perimeter attacks (such as DDoS) remain a serious threat, sophisticated bots can now target any point in the customer journey. The results can damage customers, operations, and brands significantly. Common attacks now include: Brute-force or credential stuffing to take over a legitimate customer’s account Card testing to identify usable stolen credit cards Price or content scraping for a competitive advantage Inflammatory social campaigns designed to mislead users Meanwhile, businesses report bots attack at every stage of the customer journey. 52% of businesses say bot attacks occur at account creation. 49% say they happen at account login, and 40% say they occur at checkout. 2. Most businesses experience bot attacks 58% of businesses have encountered more than 50 bot attacks in the last 12 months. As these attacks become more complex, they also take longer to detect. Bots use this additional time to cause substantial damage. Businesses reported losing partners, tarnished brand reputations, and a damaged infrastructures as a result. 3. The cost of bot attacks is significant Two-thirds of businesses said a single bot attack costs their companies $100,000 or more in revenue. And 1 in 4 reports that a single attack costs their organization over $500,000. These losses are staggering, and they don’t account for consequences such as brand damage, frozen inventory, and leaks of proprietary information. The fraction of businesses that lost at least $100,000 in a single attack The amount lost by 1 in 4 businesses to a single attack 4. Detection through WAFs and CDNs falls short The needs of e-commerce bot protection are outgrowing perimeter protection. Many businesses already use web access firewalls (WAFs) and content delivery networks (CDNs). But these tools can’t always detect sophisticated bots that penetrate further into e-commerce operations. To respond, businesses are seeking new options that protect the complete customer journey. Most importantly, businesses need to detect and manage good and malicious bots without disrupting customer experiences. Kount’s Event-Based Bot Detection offers a solution Because sophisticated bots can mimic human interactions, tools can’t always differentiate between them. Worse yet, some tools can take too blunt of an approach, blocking all bot activity, including good bots. However, by embedding protection within the business workflow, event-based bot protection compares a broad range of interactions and data in order to protect the complete customer journey — from account creation to login, payment, and checkout. This adaptive response helps businesses detect and stop suspicious bot activity. Kount’s Event-Based Bot Detection accurately identifies suspicious bot activity by linking network, device, and behavioral characteristics to billions of fraud and trust-related signals to assess risk in real time. The solution helps businesses detect and stop bot attacks across the digital customer journey.