In recent years, many analysts have repeatedly referred to "digital transformation", but have not been able to give a precise definition of this concept. The COVID-19 pandemic has given impetus to further development of "digital transformation", and the digital world has achieved decisive and even permanent expansion and development.
Figure | Global digitalization (Source: pixabay)
This is not only reflected in the most common daily functions of "digitalization", such as online chat, online games, mobile games, entertainment programs and richer digital content, etc., but also in the fact that "digitalization" has further changed the way business is done, during the quarantine period, employees work remotely from home through computers, and many training courses have been changed from on-site teaching to online video teaching.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, digitalization has made it easier for people to live and work for businesses, bringing many conveniences to society, but it has also brought some threats.
<h1>Since the COVID-19 pandemic, robots have attacked more in 2 months than in the past 2 years combined</h1>
At 6:47 Beijing time on March 2, Google posted that due to the new crown pneumonia pandemic, robot attacks have shown an upward trend as enterprises go online.
Google warns that bots are causing more problems for businesses, but many companies focus only on the most obvious attacks.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft President Satya Nadella said Microsoft saw "two years of digital transformation" in two months. Google is now finding that attackers have adapted to these changing conditions and are adding attacks on new online businesses, with bots topping the list of tools used.
Figure | Computer-assisted telecommuting (Source: pixabay)
Bot attacks can cover anything from web scratches that use bots to collect content or data, to bots trying to beat Captchas, to ad fraud, card fraud, and inventory fraud. Of particular concern is a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), where spam traffic targets an online service with the aim of drowning it out offline.
Google, an advertising giant, said that 71 percent of companies have seen an increase in the number of bots that have successfully attacked, and 56 percent have reported seeing different types of attacks. But companies say many use the wrong combination of technologies to protect themselves.
<h1>Research proves that bot attacks are often overlooked</h1>
Forrest Consulting, a google commissioned analytics firm, conducted a study that looked at methods of robot management. The survey reached 425 respondents who are responsible for fraud management, attack detection and response, and protecting user data. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said cyber scratch attacks alone lost 1 to 10 percent of their revenue.
Figure | Computer firewall (Source: pixabay)
The company found that most organizations simply protect themselves from card fraud, ad fraud, and influence fraud attacks.
As the consultancy says in this research paper: "Good automatic traffic comes from approved partner applications and search engines, while bad traffic comes from malicious bot activity." In 2019, bots accounted for more than half of all automated network traffic and nearly a quarter of all internet traffic, which forced professionals to step in. ”
The consultancy also said: "Many businesses focus on the types of attacks that are common in the news, rather than the types of attacks that are likely to cause the most damage to their bottom line." Only 15% of businesses are currently protecting themselves from cyber scratch attacks, but 73% face such attacks every week. ”
<h1>Robot management systems may help defend against attacks</h1>
Google's research also found that while 78 percent of organizations use DDoS protection, such as web application firewalls and content delivery networks (CDNs), less than one in five use "full bot management systems."
Kelly Anderson, product marketing manager at Google Cloud Platforms, said: "The business logic of people attacking applications, only bot management solutions can defend against this threat. ”
To effectively protect web applications from bot attacks, organizations must use tools such as DDoS protection, WAF and/or CDNs, and bot management solutions.
According to Anderson, the lack of connections between application security and security operations teams and e-commerce, fraud and cybersecurity professionals allows bots to pose a threat to business operations.
Figure | Computer management system (Source: pixabay)
Anderson adds, "Effective bot management relies on collaboration between many teams within an organization, including security, customer experience, e-commerce, and marketing." But on average, only two teams are involved in bot management, usually the application security and security operations teams.
However, the most common use of bot management tool data are e-commerce, fraud, and cybersecurity professionals. This disconnect can lead to commercial or fraud teams being excluded from critical bot management decisions. ”
Because of this disconnect between the security team and the anti-fraud team, the company spent 53 business days (or nearly two months) resolving the attack across roles.
Anderson wants companies to invest in a robot management system that can detect the most complex robots.