How Scalping Bots Exploited a Vulnerable API to Disrupt Online Retail Sales

In the fast-paced world of online retail, where customer satisfaction and availability are paramount, a sudden attack by scalping bots can disrupt operations, inflate costs, and damage reputation. A North American Online Retailer faced a month-long bot attack that targeted their inventory system,...

The Anatomy of a Scalping Bot: NSB Was Copped!

In recent years, scalping bots have become a growing concern for online retailers. In this two-part blog series, we will analyze the inner workings of the Nike Shoe Bot NSB scalping bot, one of the most dangerous scalping bots around. We will take a closer look at the components of NSB, how we...

Avoid The (Automated) Nightmare Before Christmas

While Christmas is often seen by most as a joyous time to be spent with family and friends, exchanging good wishes and gifts, there are those who seek to exploit it. For fraudsters, this time of the year is above all, an opportunity for profits to be made, all while wreaking havoc on eCommerce...

Scalpers, and their bot armies, swing in to net web-based Spiderman tickets

29 November 2021 was “Spider Monday” and tickets for Marvel’s film Spider-Man: No Way Home went on sale with the sort of marketing fervor for which Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe MCU are famous. As tickets to one of the most eagerly anticipated Christmas films featuring one of the most...

The Evolution of Bad Bots from Grinchbots to Parasitic Bots-as-a-Service

The doomsday pandemic prediction is that you wont be able to buy toilet paper because bad bots will have hoarded all the inventory and are offering it to the highest bidder on secondary markets at an exorbitant mark-up. The Gaming Console War The use of scalping bots was once the domain of ticket...

ThreatList: Bad Bots Account for a Fifth of All Web Traffic, FinServ Hit the Worst

About a fifth of all web traffic 20.4 percent comes from bad bots, which continue to attack daily in automated offensives on websites, mobile apps and APIs. That’s worse for some verticals, like the banking and finance sector, which was hit the hardest last year. That’s according to the Distil...