Bots are going undiscovered for an average of 16 weeks in organizational networks, opening businesses up to cyber risk.

The Bot Management Review 2022 from Netacea surveyed 440 businesses across the travel, entertainment, ecommerce, financial services and telecoms sectors in the United States and the U.K. The annual report found that in almost every measure, businesses appear to be doing worse than last year in the fight against bots — though this may not necessarily mean they are losing the fight.

The report uncovered bot cyberattack trends, including:

• Bot owners are shifting their tactics, with 60% of businesses detecting attacks on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and 39% detecting attacks on mobile apps (up from 46% and 23% from 2021, respectively).
• Attacks from each of the main types of bots — sniper, account checker, scalper and scraper — have all increased by between 7-9% from 2021. Fifty-three percent of businesses are now detecting attacks from account checker bots.
• Retailers in the U.S. are reporting fewer loyalty points being stolen by automated attacks, but the value of the average theft has more than doubled, suggesting a more targeted approach.

For more information on the effects of bot attacks, click here.