Bot Wars: How Bad Bots are Hurting Businesses

We’re excited to release the results of “Bot Wars: How Bad Bots are Hurting Businesses.” We surveyed** 500 IT and security decision makers based in the United States and the United Kingdom to explore their experience with malicious bots, including the different types of attacks and their frequency, along with the impact on businesses. We believe that by understanding the malicious bot landscape, organizations can better prepare and implement effective strategies to help safeguard their digital assets.

Let’s take a closer look at the survey’s key findings:

• 76% of surveyed organizations experienced a bot attack in the past year, with 43% experiencing multiple bot attacks.

• The average cost of a significant bot attack is $2.9 million.

• 59% of organizations reported an increase in bot attacks over the past year.

• Malware distribution bots were the most common reported threat, affecting 49% of organizations.

• 45% of respondents believe AI will significantly increase the number of bot attacks, while 27% think it will amplify their severity.

• Eight in ten survey respondents used bots for various enterprise functions, with 42% using them for customer interactions.

• While 73% of technical staff that deal with security incidents on a daily basis have seen a rise in bot attacks in the past year, only 53% of senior management believe that bot attacks are on the rise at their organizations.

• Respondents organizations were most concerned about data breaches (48%), financial loss (41%) and business/service disruption (39%) resulting from bot attacks.

• 47% of respondents believe their organization could do more to prepare for a bot attack

In addition to these findings, the survey examined the potential use of AI by adversaries to accelerate bot attacks. 45% of survey respondents believed AI would significantly increase the number of bot attacks, while 27% think AI will amplify the severity of bot attacks.

How Fastly helps fight malicious bots

Fastly Bot Management is designed to combat the growing threat of malicious bots. We help organizations detect and mitigate bot traffic at the network edge, helping protect their websites, applications, data, and valuable data from malicious automated traffic. Our customers benefit from automatic bot detection, near-instant bot classification, and mitigation through both interactive and non-interactive challenges, rate-limiting, blocking, and other methods. Plus they have access to real-time visibility to track bot trends, identify new threats, and to see which bots were blocked and why. Our service can be tailored to meet the unique needs of each organization, delivering the exact solution that you need to fight the malicious bot traffic that threatens your business.

Malicious bot attacks can significantly impact bottom-line business costs, customer satisfaction, brand reputation, and other key factors in businesses. Learn more here.

**About Bot Wars: How Bad Bots are Hurting Businesses

The research was conducted online by independent market research agency Vanson Bourne on behalf of Fastly which surveyed 500 IT and security decision-makers in the United States and the United Kingdom from organizations with at least 250 employees. The survey was conducted between April 10 - April 18, 2024.