Chatbots versus Fraud Bots: Know the Difference and How to Safeguard Your Security

A chatbot is a software that can perform any automatic tasks. It can also interact in a format similar to instant messaging. The chatbots allow the computers to learn by themselves without programming natural language processing by artificially replicating the patterns of human interactions. So technically, they are good bots, bots that are essential to the internet.

Chatbots help in automating customer services for low-level or similar queries. There are specific but repetitive questions that have specific, repetitive replies. A chatbot actually relieves human customer support to handle high-level queries that need more sophisticated customer service. Streamlining this initial customer interaction improves your brand reputation, especially among tech-savvy customers who want their queries answered fast. At minimal costs, you can integrate this technology with your website since chatbot development will not break your bank at all. Chatbots are cost and time-efficient, user-friendly, reasons which are driving businesses to adopt this technology.

But not all bots are beneficial. Not all bots are created equal. While chatbots do what they have to do, some bots are programmed to do fraudulent and malicious actions are fraud bots. Fraud bots will infect your computer and send back gathered data such as passwords, logged keystrokes, or captures packets. So technically, they are bad bots. So-called C&Cs (Command and Control Services) control botnets that organize fraud bots.

While we know the difference between chatbots (GOOD BOTS) and fraud bots (BAD BOTS), we should know how to safeguard ourselves from the malicious acts of fraud bots.

1. Evaluate a Bot Mitigation Solution

Malicious actors work hard every day to attack websites around the world. Hackers’ incentives are high, as using the bots to target a site is distributed around the globe. Fraud bots put a costly strain on IT staff and resources as the sheer volume, sophistication, and business get severely damaged by automated threats. Evaluate bot mitigation vendors that have the industry expertise and vigilant support.

2. Set up Traffic Filtration for Ads

Try setting up traffic filtration for your website to find out when hackers are trying to hack into your website. It will check recent activities of visitors to your site and display ads only to relevant viewers. Do not include bots in traffic filtration because the bots will harm the profitability of your online campaigns. Monitor your traffic sources regularly.

3. Distinguish Between Bots Within Browsers

Clicking on a link within a browser in a regular browsing session generates a ‘referrer’ header, or it will be forged. Consider setting up your site with HTTPS, which will secure your website via TLS protocol (Transport Layer Security). Identifying bots that look alike would indicate maliciousness. Using various sources, like fingerbanking.org, match user-agent values with known program versions, which helps detect abnormal bad bots. Using Mozilla 5.0 is the best string in the user-agent field. Untrustworthy browsers will not create traffic without acquiring a user-agent value.

4. Distinguish Between Browsers and Other Clients

Chrome, Winslet, and Java Runtime Environment are different client types. All operating systems have different kinds of clients and libraries that generate traffic. Bots usually use application-layer headers because most firewall configurations allow HTTP and TLS to any address, which they use to communicate with their targets. By identifying groups of client-configured HTTP and TLS features is by identifying bots operating outside of browsers. It is an excellent way to indicate the traffic that is being generated outside the browser.

5. Block or CAPTCHA Outdated User Agents/Browsers

It is essential to block or CAPTCHA outdated user agents/browsers because the default configurations for many tools and scripts contain lists of agent-user strings that are outdated. Surfing through the web for an outdated version will be more challenging to use because of modern browsers force auto-updates, making the risk in blocking outdated user-agents/browsers very low.

6. Determine a Target’s Risk

If you want to determine malicious targets, use target reputation, and target popularity. With the target reputation, it can calculate a domain being malicious based on the experience gathered from many flows. It can determine by either third-party services or self-calculating, noting whenever users report a target as a malicious action. With a large number of new domains, domain reputation mechanisms can lack sufficient context to categorize them correctly.

7. Understand Your Vulnerabilities

It is essential to know the nature of threats, and you must have a plan to patch and protect your vulnerabilities online. You should continually evaluate and evolve your security measures to stay safe from hackers. Every business collects sensitive data that might be a value to malicious actors.

Conclusion: Your Business Needs a Chatbot

Businesses need to move out of curiosity stage regarding chatbots and dive into the trend with confidence because this technology will improve their business greatly. The chatbot’s influence is growing and affecting the future of eCommerce. Many brands have begun using chatbots because they have realized how they can optimize valuable assets like human resources and even physical use of company equipment and time just by integrating this advancement. It’s time to catch up with the rest of the world and begin your company’s chatbot development and integration as soon as you can.

Your websites will not just be visited by clients who come to your site. It will also be attended by fraud bots that will come and steal your data. It is best to take action when you are being attacked by bad bots that are programmed by malicious actors. You must always be aware of when fraud bots come to your sites. Always ensure that your network is secure from hackers so your visitors enjoy unhindered usage of your website.