Half Of Internet Traffic Is Made Up Of Bots That Steal $7B From Companies Annually

Traffic is basically the unit of measurement with regards to the number of visitors that enter a particular website or page. Ideally, traffic should be made up of real humans whom websites can offer products or services to, or make money off of via ads. Now, new data indicates that over half of the traffic that are found on the internet are actually made up of bots or software. What’s more, some of these bots steal over $7 billion in revenue from companies every year.

It’s worth noting that bots are not all bad for business. In fact, Google uses them in order to provide users with reliable sources of information. However, there are also so-called “bad bots” that are used for several nefarious purposes, Futurism reports.

For example, bots can be used for identity theft and to shut down dozens of websites at once via DDoS attacks. There is also the matter of bots redirecting traffic that are supposed to go to legitimate websites towards destinations set up by malicious individuals. Not only is this a serious threat to users, it also robs companies billions of dollars in revenue every year according to the Imperva Incapsula Bot Traffic Report.

These “bad bots” make up about 28.9 percent of internet traffic compared to the 22.9 percent of useful bots, Fossbytes reports. Combined, they make up about 51.8 percent of all traffic on the internet, which might shock those who don’t really follow these developments.

The good news, however, is that the number of “bad bots” appear to have stagnated in recent years while “good bots” are increasing in numbers. In addition, more and more companies are implementing security systems in order to combat these malicious programs. Even government bodies are starting to get involved, drafting legislation that would hand out punishment to creators of “bad bots.”