With the holiday shopping season in full swing, retail websites can expect a spike in account takeover fraud, DDoS, and other attacks, including attacks via APIs, which now represent almost half of e-commerce traffic.
According to a recent report from application and data security company Imperva, bots account for more than 40% of traffic to online retail websites on average, with around 24% of traffic coming from “bad bots” that engage in various forms of automated attacks.
“The high risk for e-commerce is more noticeable during the holiday shopping season, which now begins as early as October,” the company said. “Bad actors have gotten wise to consumer shopping patterns, which start weeks before significant events like Black Friday due to shipping delays and item availability concerns, as well as marketing tactics such as shops offering unbeatable deals weeks before Black Friday.”
