The proverb “the client is always right” is familiar to you. It’s a slogan used by conventional company owners to demonstrate their dedication to satisfying their customers.
It’s a valid strategy for expanding your clientele, and there’s a good reason why it was the standard in the traditional business sector until the very recent past.
But if you want to keep your company safe from con artists and thieves in the digital age, you’ll need a new set of abilities. Over half of all online and a quarter of all web traffic was generated by bots in 2019.
As time goes on, online retailers learn to anticipate and counteract the methods used by cybercriminals. In this ongoing arms race, fraudsters always develop new and improved methods of stealing sensitive information, using malware, or otherwise fooling their targets.
Running a web shop or business without knowing how to spot and avoid common online fraud is like navigating a minefield unarmed. Threats need equally robust strategies and equipment. When your company is on the hook for any losses that result from fraud or theft, taking precautions to stop them is a top priority.
Knowing the many kinds of fraud and how to respond if your company has been hit, you can move quickly and professionally to thwart the criminals.
Let’s talk about enterprise cybersecurity for a bit
What constitutes enterprise cybersecurity is anything done to safeguard a company’s information, systems, and personnel against cyber criminals. Data stored locally, in the cloud, and the many potential entry points for assaults must all be safeguarded.
In addition, it entails examining the paths taken by data as it travels from one system to another and taking any necessary precautions to prevent unauthorized access. You further read about business cybersecurity tips to ensure your enterprise isn’t the latest victim of all these vicious attacks.
Why should online enterprises be aware of bots
According to 2017’s yearly trends study presented at the Code Conference, bots (programs designed to undertake automated activities) are now more prevalent online than people.
While these bots are the engines behind the technical progress that enhances the client experience, whether, via online retail or digital assistants, they also have access to the personal details of internet users.
As a result, it is common for these same technologies to be the source of fraud. The Bot Baseline Report estimates that $6.5 billion was lost to deception in internet ads in 2017.
Combating bot fraud can seem like an endless battle. Bots are accessible, easy to control, and quick to deploy. They can sift through corporate software for profit potential.
Although making your apps completely impenetrable is difficult, you can reduce their attractiveness to cybercriminals by using a comprehensive defense plan. One ideal thing to do is to read about the innovative technologies that are changing the business for good.
How exactly do bat bots harm your enterprise
Bad bots are a problem for all businesses, not just those in the aviation, e-commerce, and banking services sectors, which have historically been the primary targets. In many respects, bots are like human cyberattacks in that they can significantly damage your company.
🡺 Checkout and application abuse bots
Abuse bots that target e-commerce platforms and software applications tend to be complex programs with a broad range of destructive applications.
They often acquire goods and services at discounted costs in the online market. The value of cryptocurrencies can be manipulated using similar bots to attack decentralized exchange rates.
🡺 Click bots
They’re used for two reasons:
- Put monetarily. Criminals utilize automated software to boost clicks on PPC adverts they place on their websites.
- To zero down on businesses supporting PPC advertising. Every time one of their advertisements is clicked on, these businesses fork over money to the ad network (like Google Ads). Without generating genuine traffic, click bots drive up the price of marketing.
🡺 Vulnerability scanners and attack bots
Sites that are susceptible to common assaults like SQL injection (SQLi) and cross-site scripting (XSS) can be found using vulnerability scanners and attack bots (XSS).
Although some bots can launch assaults on soft targets, others can report them to human attackers.
🡺 Spambots
They fall into two categories:
- Email address harvesting bots are used to compile spam distribution lists.
- Blog and website comment spambots are automated programs that post irrelevant comments or links to dangerous websites.
🡺 Scraping bots
The website price information is a common target for scraping bots. Companies with bad intentions utilize this method to get an advantage over the competition or acquire information.
Many hedge firms now utilize scraping bots to scour the web for data they can use to make better trading choices. Investment scraping bots account for almost 5% of all Internet traffic, according to financial management consultant Opimas.
🡺 Inventory hoarding bots
Inventory hoarding bots are computer programs that continually add items to clients’ shopping carts, preventing such items from being purchased by actual buyers.
This is occasionally done to cause chaos in the workplace but is more often used to “hold” things before reselling them at a profit. The most prevalent businesses hit by inventory hoarding assaults are those involved in online commerce and tickets.
🡺 Account creation bots
Free accounts are created by account creation bots, which are then used to send spam or take advantage of “new account” discounts.
🡺 Credential attacks/account takeover bots
These bots engage in “credential stuffing” assaults, like credit card fraud. Accounts are easily taken over after a successful login.
Compromised accounts can be exploited for a wide variety of nefarious purposes, including but not limited to financial fraud, spam, extortion, and password reuse attacks.
Protecting your business should be your utmost priority
Every merchant should make preventing online fraud their top priority. Cybercrime won’t just disappear. This means it is up to the store to constantly adapt its strategy to stay up with the ever-increasing sophistication and wit of the competition.
Protecting your business against fraud doesn’t have to be difficult if you implement security standards and use independent firms for monitoring and advice.
Business security is mostly a matter of common sense and knowing what tools to use. Give a read to these five ways where you can collect customer information and secure it.
🡺 Gift card fraud bots
Exploiting the ability to check a gift card’s balance can be used to test many potential card numbers quickly. The available funds are utilized to make unauthorized transactions as soon as a match is made.
🡺 Credit card fraud bots
Bots that commit credit card theft shop online using stolen card data. Each year, millions of credit card numbers are sold online, and bots are utilized to do extensive validation checks.
FIVE Ideal strategies that will put an end to fraud and bot attacks
❒ Detect and manage bot traffic to your online enterprise
As we have seen, bots and scripts are used in various e-commerce fraud schemes. Consequently, investing in a cutting-edge anti-bot mitigation solution is very effective for shielding your online store from fraudulent assaults.
These days’ malicious bots are quite sophisticated, making it difficult to identify them. Web application firewalls (WAFs) like reCaptcha, a service offered by Google, aren’t up to the job because they upset real users and lower conversion rates.
Many existing solutions use AI and machine learning technology to identify and control bot traffic in real time. These programs operate independently of your IT department; they can detect and counteract bot assaults independently.
❒ Block known hosting providers and proxy services
Many less skilled offenders utilize readily available hosting and proxy services; thus, this problem will persist even if the most advanced attackers go to other, harder-to-block networks.
Attackers can be dissuaded from targeting your website, API, and mobile applications if access from these locations is denied.
❒ PCI Compliance
The Payment Card Industry Security Standard Council (PCI) comprises the world’s largest credit card companies. They created a set of standards for the payment card industry to follow to keep customer information safe.
Nowadays, consumers expect all retailers to adhere to PCI rules while making purchases with their credit cards, which is what “PCI Compliance” monitors.
The good news for online stores is that their payment service will cover all the nitty-gritty requirements for PCI Compliance.
To alleviate the burden on the vendor, payment processors like PayPal have incorporated such regulations into their core business processes.
Information to assist you in best explaining this widely used payment mechanism can be found on the webpage of the PCI Security Standards Council.
❒ Employ multi-layer technology
Applying many layers of protection is a great way to strengthen your defences. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults and malicious inbound traffic can be mitigated using a widespread Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Machine learning is used to distinguish harmful traffic from benign traffic. Two-factor authentication provides an extra safeguard that can be used with the standard login process.
Two-factor authentication necessitates the usual user ID/password pair and an additional code delivered to the user through email or text messages. Even if their login credentials were compromised, the service would still be accessible only to the intended user.
❒ Evaluate a bot mitigation solution
An arms race has developed around the issue of bots. Every day, cybercriminals worldwide work hard to launch attacks on websites.
Bots are becoming an increasingly expensive burden on IT departments as the number, complexity, and harm to businesses caused by automated attacks continue to rise.
These days, bots can fool conventional security measures by acting like humans. If you want complete insight into and command over malicious traffic, you should look at bot mitigation providers that provide it.