There are many threats to digital infrastructure in 2024, but still, the response from businesses across the globe is still muted. A recent study revealed that only 17% of SMEs have robust cybersecurity measures in place, and a concerning 48% of companies only implement such measures after experiencing a cyberattack.
What to note is simple precautions such as static IP blocking or basic rate limiting won’t be enough to protect against the most serious cyber threats. They may be enough for low level or unsophisticated attacks but will fall short against API abuse and bots – potentially the most overlooked threat out there right now.
The reality is API abuse and bot driven attacks have evolved over the years and are more complex and harder to detect than traditional cyber threats. But not only are SMEs overlooking them, some don’t even know what they are.
Meant to enable data exchange across platforms they have become an open door for malicious bots to enter, scrape and overwhelm systems. Every second hundreds of thousands of automated requests are hitting APIs, exploiting vulnerabilities that traditional security measures ignore.
These automated attackers aim to not only disrupt but to fundamentally reshape digital infrastructure by weaponizing its lifeblood: data.
In the next sections we’ll look at the anatomy of API abuse, the tactics of the bots and why this often overlooked threat is key to the future of secure digital ecosystems.
API Abuse and Bots: Explained
API abuse is when bad actors use APIs – Application Programming Interfaces – to get, steal or manipulate company data. APIs are gateways that allow different software systems to talk to each other and exchange information, but because they provide direct access to data, they’ve become the go-to target for attackers to exploit and get a lot of sensitive info.
Bots are involved here. For those who don’t know, these are automated scripts or programs that do things over and over again at scale, often to do bad things undetected. In API abuse, bots will be used to exploit API endpoints to make mass requests, scrape data and launch super damaging attacks.
Why is it Overlooked?
One reason API abuse and bot attacks are often overlooked is that organizations tend to prioritize more traditional threats like phishing, malware, and ransomware. Many businesses take a reactive approach – they only install good cybersecurity solutions after they get hit. This reactive approach means they overlook the ongoing risk of evolving threats like API abuse and therefore don’t have the right defensive strategies and bot management solutions.
Another significant challenge posed by API abuse and bot attacks is their stealthy nature. Unlike more obvious cyberattacks like phishing, these threats often operate silently in the background, making them difficult to detect. Bots, in particular, are designed to mimic human behavior, further complicating detection efforts.
The scale of API abuse is staggering. The 2023 State of API Security Report from Traceable highlights the growing importance of API security. It states that 74% of organizations experienced at least three API-related breaches in 2023, with 40% facing five or more. according to the reports. One study found that bots are responsible for 40% of global web traffic, most of it hitting vulnerable APIs to steal data, manipulate inventory and take over accounts. These automated attacks are so advanced that even well protected systems struggle to tell the difference between legitimate requests and bot driven intrusions. This hidden war is happening behind millions of logins and transactions daily and has big financial implications, with global businesses losing billions every year to API abuse alone.
But as businesses are expanding their digital footprint, the number of public APIs is growing rapidly and the surface area for attackers is getting bigger. Experts predict that by 2025, 90% of all web enabled applications will use APIs as their primary data exchange mechanism, up from 80% today. With this growth, companies need to adopt more advanced bot management and API protection tools as traditional security measures are not enough. This is critical not only to protect sensitive information but to preserve trust and resilience in our digital world.
Growing Awareness in 2024
Luckily this is just a blip in the war between cybersecurity solutions and cyber criminality. With all the recent publicity around bot creation – specifically AI bots that can mimic humans even better – organisations are starting to see the advanced tactics being used by cybercriminals and the damage they can do to their business.
With this technology in mind there has been an increase in attacks and the economic impact of insecure APIs has grown to $87 billion a year – a $12 billion increase since 2021. With the publicity comes education and resources and more companies are starting to look into the issue and invest in specialist security solutions that can combat these unique challenges.
Fighting Against API Abuse and Bots
As we mentioned before, bot management is one of the best solutions to this problem. One of the issues with API abuse is that it’s hard to distinguish between a ‘useful bot’ – bots like SEO tools that are accessing your site so you rank higher – and a bad one – bots trying to breach your system and should be blocked immediately.
Now bot management solutions use AI and machine learning to monitor bot behavior in real time so you can tell the difference between legitimate and malicious bot traffic. They can analyze everything from request frequency and location to user behavior so you can keep out the bad bots and let the good ones through.
With a good bot management tool you can categorise bots, slow them down, misdirect them or feed them false information to control their activities. In other words, you can harness the power of good bots while still benefiting from the bots that are impacting your business positively.
As API usage grows, attackers are getting smarter. Some malicious bots now have advanced evasion techniques like IP rotation, session spoofing and CAPTCHA solving mechanisms to get past traditional security measures. To combat these sophisticated threats, companies are introducing advanced bot management features like “honeypot traps” and behavior based detection algorithms that can expose malicious bots by analyzing anomalies in their behavior. With these tools you can defend against API abuse and keep your data and services safe, and your own operations and users data protected.
Conclusion
Whether it’s scraping, scalping, credential stuffing or account takeover, bots are getting into global networks every day and often go undetected until it’s too late. API abuse is a problem every company will face at some point or another in their life so it’s important to take proactive measures before they can do damage. One ATO can break customer trust and if customers find out an organisation they trusted didn’t take the necessary precautions then they won’t come back.
On a personal note, protecting data feels like a never ending task but it’s also a shared responsibility. Simple steps – keeping software up to date and verifying sources – may seem basic but are the first line of defence. In a world where technology changes at lightning speed small consistent actions can make all the difference.
So as we wrap up, ask yourself: how prepared is your organisation for the threats hiding in the digital shadows? In a world where every data point and interaction is worth something, the cost of doing nothing could be more than we can imagine.
