Bot check them from harming users, stealing revenue and destroying reputation is vital to maintaining the integrity and security of online business. Bad bots can cause financial losses through account takeover (ATO), credential stuffing, and carding attacks; damage brand reputation and consumer trust; and slow growth through false conversions and traffic skewing. Bot detection can mitigate these risks by recognizing patterns of behavior that are typical of bad bots.

The most common indicators of bots include sudden, unexplained spikes in traffic to a website or mobile app; unexpected, dramatic increases in page views per user; and false conversions. A sudden, unexplained increase in the bounce rate of a website may also indicate that bots are being used to spam or scrape content. Other indicators include a sudden, unexplained increase in traffic from a single geographic region; a large number of form submissions that are not converted to customers; and an unusually fast completion time for forms.

Spotting the Imposters: How to Conduct Effective Bot Checks

To prevent bots from committing fraud, SEON uses multiple techniques to detect and stop them. It maintains a database of known bot signatures, and checks incoming requests against this to flag suspicious activity. In addition, it uses velocity rules — which monitor user actions over time — to flag suspicious bots. For example, if a new user creates an account and then suddenly submits three credit card numbers in one minute, velocity checks could alert the system to this anomaly. Lastly, device hashes are created and compared to identify returning bots and those trying to commit multi-accounting abuse (e.g., bonus abuse on iGaming sites).