The rise of the 'gray bots' targeting websites for data
We all know about good bots like search engine crawler bots, SEO bots, and customer service bots. And we know about bad bots, designed for malicious or harmful online activities like breaching accounts to steal personal data or commit fraud.
New research from Barracuda identifies an additional breed of 'gray bots', and these include GenAI scraper bots, designed to extract or scrape large volumes of data from websites, often to train generative AI models. Other examples of gray bots are web scrapers and automated content aggregators that collect web content such as news, reviews, travel offers and more.
The race against AI web scrapers: effective strategies to protect your data [Q&A]
A surge in artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI), and machine learning (ML) technologies is creating a massive online appetite for data. These tools are hungry for training data, this has boosted AI web scraping, which sits in a legal gray zone. Sometimes it's legal, sometimes it's not, but what's clear is that it's having ripple effects across online businesses.
We talked to Nick Rieniets, field CTO of Kasada, to learn more about the impact of web scraping and what companies can do to protect their content.
Businesses losing revenue to bot attacks
A new report reveals that 98 percent of organizations attacked by bots in the past year have lost revenue as a result.
The latest State of Bot Mitigation Report from Kasada, based on a survey of over 220 US tech professionals, also shows that despite investing heavily in bot defenses, most solutions are proving to be ineffective. Just one in five say that after initial deployment their bot mitigation solution retained effectiveness for more than 12 months.
Why robust KYC procedures are crucial for all SaaS companies [Q&A]
For banks, know-your-customer (KYC) measures amount to 40 percent of all anti money laundering (AML) compliance costs, totaling $5.7 million each year. This sum is tiny, however, compared to what is paid for non-compliance. In 2022, global fines for inadequate AML grew by 50 percent, almost reaching $5 billion.
We spoke to Vaidotas Šedys, head of risk management at web intelligence platform Oxylabs, to discover that KYC-related challenges are not just faced by banks but are an issue for proxy and web scraping service providers too.
Fake web traffic gets more sophisticated
Bots have been around for a long time, but they're now much more sophisticated, capable of mimicking human behavior, evading detection, and perpetrating a wide range of malicious activities.
A new report from CHEQ shows that latest bots are able to scrape data without permission, inflate engagement metrics, commit fraud, and compromise the security and integrity of websites, mobile apps, and APIs.
Bad bots try to be more human
Bad bots are designed perform various malicious activities. These range from basic scrapers that try to get some data off an application -- and are easily blocked -- to more advanced persistent bots that try to evade detection.
Barracuda researchers have been tracking bots for several years and have identified some interesting recent trends not least that, like King Louie in The Jungle Book, they 'wanna be like you'.
Real-time web data -- a new source of competitive intelligence [Q&A]
Gathering real-time public web data for business intelligence is a new competitive asset for some companies, but little information is available about the use cases for such data.
We spoke to Aleksandras Šulženko, product owner at Oxylabs.io, to learn more about how web data can be a valuable resource for enterprises.
Ethical web scraping and data rights [Q&A]
Web scraping, automatically harvesting and extracting data from websites, can be a useful tool for businesses to learn about their customers.
But it's easy to fall into the trap of harvesting data just because it's there, leading to information overload not to mention privacy concerns for the consumer. To find out more about web scraping and how it can be used in an ethical way we spoke to founder and CEO of Rayobyte, Neil Emeigh.
How web scraping has gone from niche to mainstream [Q&A]
Web scraping -- collecting data from websites -- has been around almost as long as the internet has existed. But recently it's gone from a little-known niche to a serious activity, using automation to collect large amounts of information.
We spoke to Julius Černiauskas, CEO of data acquisition company Oxylabs to find out more about web scraping and how it has evolved.
Scraping is evergreen
Web scraping and crawling have played a major role in creating the internet we see today. While the technology, the process, and the results remain invisible to most, all of it is here to stay. I’d even say that scraping will never go "out of fashion", barring some extreme regulatory changes.
Of course, over its history, web scraping has undergone significant changes, primarily due to the ever increasing complexity of the internet. I think relatively few remember the magnificent simplicity of web pages from the 90s. Scraping was a little easier back then.
Upgrade your e-commerce strategy with web scraping
Is your e-commerce enterprise leveraging the power of external data to enhance decision-making, maximize profits, and expand your business? If not, you may be getting left behind.
By providing you with powerful data-powered insights, web scraping can give your business a significant advantage to help you outperform the competition, produce better products, and provide superior customer service.
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