Tim Chang | Vice President, Application Security Products
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Tim Chang | Vice President, Application Security Products
More About This Author >
More than half of all internet traffic is now automated. Bots don’t just scrape data or hoard inventory anymore. They mimic humans so convincingly that even seasoned security teams struggle to spot them. With the help of AI, these bots type, click, and even pause like real users.
That’s why, during Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2025, one of the Core 4 actions—recognize and report scams—is more important than ever. Because if we can’t see the threat, we can’t stop it.
How AI Makes Bots Smarter
Bots are not new. What’s new is how AI has transformed them.
- Mimicking human behavior: AI-driven bots type, scroll, and navigate with realistic micro-pauses, blending seamlessly into normal traffic.
- Lowering the barrier to entry: Tools powered by generative AI make bot creation simple—even attackers with limited skills can now launch credential stuffing campaigns, scrape entire websites, or run large-scale scams.
- Scaling both brute force and stealth: AI fuels a surge in high-volume, simple attacks, while also enabling sophisticated campaigns that mimic humans so closely traditional defenses fail. Imperva’s research shows nearly half of this advanced traffic now targets APIs, bypassing user interfaces altogether.
The result: bots that are faster, smarter, and harder to detect—turning automation into one of the most dangerous tools in the attacker’s arsenal.
Why Recognition Matters
The first challenge is seeing what is there. Bots are designed to hide. Many use residential proxies, routing their activity through genuine home internet connections. This allows them to bypass IP-based security rules. Imperva found that one in five (21%) of bot attacks now use these proxies.
Recognition requires more than counting clicks. It means looking at behavior. How quickly are requests sent? How do patterns shift over time? Does the user navigate like a human or scan pages with machine precision? These questions are key to detection.
When security teams miss these signs, bots slip through the nets. They fill shopping carts to block customers from buying. They flood login pages with stolen credentials. They scrape content and data. They act at scale and in silence until they succeed.
Reporting Turns the Tide
Once a bot is detected, reporting is key. Not only to internal teams, but to industry networks, security vendors, and even affected customers.
The reason is simple. Bot operators do not attack in isolation. They reuse tactics and infrastructure. A proxy used in one attack may be used again tomorrow. An API targeted today may be exploited in another sector next week.
Timely reporting allows defenses to adapt quickly. Shared intelligence can disrupt bot networks before they evolve into something harder to stop.
From Awareness to Action: Stopping AI-Powered Bots
Stopping AI-powered bots requires more than a single tool or tactic. It takes a layered defense that blends advanced technology with human awareness. Bots move fast, and no one team or control can stop them alone.
- Detect with intelligence: The Imperva Application Security platform uses behavioral analysis and machine learning to profile traffic in real time. By analyzing micro-pauses, navigation patterns, and mouse movements, it can separate humans from automation with precision. Paired with global threat intelligence, this ensures both known and unknown bots are caught before they cause damage.
- Block at scale: Bots don’t act in isolation, and neither should defenses. Imperva AppSec protections work across websites, mobile apps, and APIs, challenging or blocking malicious traffic without disrupting legitimate users. This allows businesses to respond at the same speed and scale as the attackers.
- Empower people to act: Technology works best when paired with vigilance. Every member of an organization, from security teams to customer-facing staff, plays a role in recognizing bot-fueled scams. Practical steps include:
- Monitoring traffic patterns for unusual spikes or repeated failed logins.
- Hardening authentication with multifactor methods that add friction bots can’t easily replicate.
- Educating staff to spot suspicious behaviors, like repeated failed purchases or strange login activity.
- Sharing intelligence quickly, both internally and with industry peers, to disrupt bot networks before they evolve further.
Awareness and technology together create resilience. Bots thrive in the shadows, but when organizations can see clearly, share rapidly, and respond decisively, AI-powered automation loses its edge.
Bots Are Here to Stay
Bots are not going away. They will grow smarter, faster, and more deeply woven into cybercrime. But AI cuts both ways. With the right defenses, it becomes a powerful ally—spotting patterns no human eye could catch and blocking threats in real time.
Recognizing and reporting scams is more than an Awareness Month reminder. It’s a discipline every organization must embed into daily operations. At Thales and Imperva, we champion this shift—helping businesses see through the disguise, share intelligence widely, and stop AI-powered automation before it stops them.
In the battle of signal versus noise, trust is the signal. And with smarter defenses, it can remain stronger than the bots.