Just like cops, there are bad Bots and good bots. Both currently make up a majority of web traffic, but they never used to lead the way. Unlike cops, neither of the two are going to put away bad guys who most likely are behind our army of bots. Bots never used to outnumber humans until 2014 when research revealed that almost 60 percent of all web traffic could be attributed to "automated bits of code".
Bots attack!
If you have been wondering whether or not lawyers can be replaced by an A.I., the answer has always been and will always be a solid "yes".
Bots are very useful because they can do things to help you out, such as file a ticket, send an email or chat with you. They can even go out into the wild for you and interact with other services on your behalf, just like lawyers. There are literally hundreds of bot types to be found in every corner of the web, from scammers and scrappers to Special Ops robots. Many are waging war against each other in great "bot wars" that are surprisingly all too common.
Impersonator bots: what we know so far
Out of the many available bots, impersonators are the ones hackers would likely use to go look for vulnerabilities in a system. They become "hacker bots," scanning sites systematically for known vulnerabilities and then exploiting them, ultimately launching a scavenger hunt for an un-patched system.
Because these Impersonator bots are usually employed by small groups of people and not large organizations, their growth is closely related to the growth of the internet's human population. The more people who use the Internet, the more impersonator bots there will be. In 2012, at least 37 percent of bad bots were impersonators.
In 2015, that number increased to more than 50 percent.
There are many of 'em
The number of bad bots may increase or decrease over time, but the number of impersonators found online has continued to increase throughout the years. According to Imperva Incapsula’s annual report, DDoS bots are categorized as impersonator bots. DDoS, which stands for distributed denial-of-service attacks, happens when a service is temporarily made unavailable by suspension or interruption.
Over 90 percent of the security events happening in a network is the result of bad robot activity, and this will most likely be the norm for quite a while. Robots and software that perform DDoS attacks usually come from anonymous proxies, which are currently freely available, to cover their true identities.
Remembering those who died for our nation's sovereignty, we the People demand the Russian spy vacate the White House. #POTUSeviction.
— Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) May 29, 2017
Who are impersonator bots?
- "hacker"
- DDoS
- rogue
