A new report from bot attack defender Kasada shows that revenue loss from bot-driven account fraud and web scraping continues to skyrocket.
This sobering news comes despite companies spending more on bot mitigation solutions every year, according to Kasada’s 2022 State of Bot Mitigation Report.
The report is based on the findings of organizations that are already using anti-bot solutions and compares results against last year’s report, the company said in a prepared statement.
Kasada commissioned Atomik Research to survey of more than 200 technology professionals throughout the United States during August 2022. Respondents were those who have the responsibility of managing and/or mitigating bots.
Revenue Losses From Bot Attacks Stack Up
Key findings from the 2022 State of Bot Mitigation Report include:
- 69% of companies that have a bot management solution report losing more than 6% of their revenue due to account fraud this year, up from 64% in 2021.
- 40% of companies lost 10% of revenue or more, a major increase from 2021 when only 5% reported that level of revenue loss.
- Account fraud includes account takeovers and new account fraud, where fraudsters create fake accounts to gain access to loyalty programs and take advantage of promotional discounts.
- 83% of companies say that bots are becoming more sophisticated and difficult for their security tools to detect. This amount increased from 2021s 80%.
- 62% of companies have spent more than $500,000 fighting bots within the past 12 months. This is a 14-point increase from 2021, when only 48% were spending more than $500K.
- 21% of companies have spent $2.5 million or more fighting bots this year.
- 85% of companies expect to spend even more on bot mitigation in the next year, increasing from last year when only 63% reported that they planned to spend more.
Bot Management/Remediation vs. Bot Solutions
Sam Crowther, CEO and founder of Kasada added perspective to the survey results:
“Bots continue to evolve and thrive at the expense of companies. As this year’s research confirms, it is imperative that companies have an anti-bot solution that evolves, keeping them a step ahead of attackers. Too much money, time and effort are being wasted by companies on reactive solutions that require a great deal of management and don’t work well. We built Kasada to take an entirely different approach to bots — an approach that makes it difficult for attackers, yet easy for defenders.”
Additional findings from the report include:
- Companies continue to spend a majority of their bot management budget (66%) on management and remediation of their anti-bot tools vs. the anti-bot solution itself.
- Nearly 40% of companies also reported a 10% or greater loss of revenue due to bot-driven web scraping. This is an increase from the 7% that indicated web scraping was a problem last year. Web scraping occurs when bots extract prices or content to obtain a competitive advantage.
