Businesses Can't Tell Good Bots from Bad Bots: Report

One in three organizations can't differentiate good or legitimate bots from bad bots - a shortcoming that can affect application security.

Bots make up more than 75% of total traffic for some businesses, according to a Radware study on Web application security. The study found nearly half (45%) of businesses had been hit with a data breach in the past year, and 68% are not confident they can keep corporate information safe.

Malicious bots are a serious risk, as Web-scraping attacks can affect retailers by stealing intellectual property, undercutting prices, and holding mass inventory in limbo, the report states. In retail, 40% of businesses can't tell good bots from bad ones. The healthcare industry is also struggling: 42% of traffic comes from bots, but 20% of IT security execs can tell if they're nefarious.

Researchers found gaps in DevOps security, which likely stem from the pressure to consistently deliver application services. Half (49%) of respondents use the continuous delivery of application services and 21% plan to adopt it in the next 1-2 years. More than half (62%) believe this increases the attack surface and about half report they don't integrate security into continuous application delivery.

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