BotGuard Infographic (PDF)

PREVENTING AUTOMATED USE
A new paradigm in network security

WHAT IS A BOT?
An Int ernet bot , in it s most generic sense, is so ware t hat performs an
aut omat ed t ask over t he Int ernet . In ot her words, a bot is an aut omat ed
applicat ion used t o perform simple and repet it ive t asks t hat would be
t ime-consuming, mundane or impossible for a human t o perform. Bot s can
be used for product ive t asks such as a search engine spider, but t hey are
also frequent ly used for malicious purposes. These bot s aut omat e logins
t o web pages, harvest emails, manipulat e online polls and cause t ra ic
congest ion.

How do bots affect the internet?
Wit h bad bot s represent ing nearly a quart er of all web t ra ic, organizat ions are paying he y bandwidt h
cost premiums t o support harmful t ra ic. Moreover, t he nat ure of bot s cont ribut es t o higher bandwidt h
usage; cost ing host ing providers and cont ent creat ors more money and poorer sit e performance t o
websit e visit ors. Bad bot s are a widespread realit y t hat hurt s organizat ions of all t ypes, not just ISPs.
Eight y-eight percent of
bot s in t he financial
services indust ry are
from The NASDAQ OMX
Group.

The number of bad bot s has increased t o t went yfour percent of t ot al web t ra ic; doubling in
number from t welve percent in 2013.

of web t ra ic of over 1,100
ISPs consist of bot s.

of malicious bot t ra ic is from
Amazon servers.

of bot s originat e from t he
Unit ed St at es.

How do we stop these nefarious bots?

INTRODUCING BOTGUARD
The Bot Guard is a new device t hat can prevent unwant ed
aut omat ed t ra ic. Tradit ional securit y models t ypically cont ain
only a firewall, which can be t hought of as a device t hat asks, 'Is
t his t ra ic malicious?'. However, t his met hod is ine ect ive as an
at t acker could send a net work millions of possible at t acks, and if
only one at t ack can t rick t he firewall, t he at t acker can gain access
or damage a syst em. The Bot guard, however, can be t hought of as
a device t hat asks "Is t his t ra ic from a human?" This can prevent
large at t acks by making t hem t oo expensive for an at t acker t o
carry out . Addit ionally, t he Bot guard can prevent at t ackers from
ext ract ing dat a, and can generally save t he owner of a Bot guard
money by reducing t he aut omat ed, frivolous t ra ic wit h which a
server has t o int eract , resources bet t er spent on legit imat e users.

How does the BotGuard work?
Cryptographic Puzzles
Bot s and ot her aut omat ed request s will be easily filt ered by t he Bot Guard as it has
t o survive t hrough a series of crypt ographic puzzles in order t o pass a simple t est :
Are you a bot , or are you not ?

Dynamic Inline Obfuscation
The Bot Guard is capable of st rat egically reordering cert ain element s wit hin web
pages in order t o t rick a bot from performing it s series of aut omat ed at t acks. This
is part icuarily e ect ive det errent against bot s wit h no "int elligence."

No User Input Required
The days of having t o wast e precious t ime squint ing at a crypt ic CAPTCHA and
check a box are now over. The Bot Guard int egrat es seamlessly wit h your exist ing
ent erprise environment wit h no configurat ion required.

Created by:
All analytics from Distil Network's
2014 Bad Bot Landscape Report.