According to a recent DataDome report, 65.2% of all global websites are completely vulnerable to bot attacks.
Out of 14,000 domains tested, only 8.44% successfully blocked all bot requests.
Meanwhile, 26.4% were partially protected, able to repel some but not all bots. For the rest, it's as if they laid out a welcome mat for every bot on the internet.
The e-commerce and luxury industries are the worst offenders when it comes to bot protection.
More than 70% of websites in these industries failed DataDome's tests. Given that these are prime targets for account fraud, payment fraud, and inventory hoarding, the lack of security is comparable to leaving cash on the sidewalk.
Even healthcare websites, which handle sensitive personal information, are doing a poor job.
More than 70% of them are vulnerable to attacks. In contrast, gambling sites appear to know what's going on, with only 44.05% failing the tests—still not great, but leagues ahead of e-commerce and healthcare.
You’d think regions like Europe and North America, with their technological advancements, would be leading the way in cybersecurity.
Think again. Europe is practically a digital straw house, with 68% of its websites failing to protect against bots.
North America isn't doing much better, with 64% of domains unprotected. Surprisingly, Latin America has the highest security level, with 17% of tested domains successfully blocking all bot requests.
It's ironic that while Europe and North America produce many technological innovations, they lag behind in basic website security.
Not to mention, bots are not just simple scripts that can be easily blocked. Fake Chrome bots, for example, are among the most difficult to detect.
They mimicked real user behavior so well that only 15.82% of them were detected.
Then there are advanced bots, which remained undetected 95.25% of the time.
To circumvent security measures, these bots use sophisticated techniques such as anti-fingerprinting headless browsers.
In other words, they're in your cart, login page, and account database, and you probably have no idea.
Ignoring bot protection isn't just risky; it's practically a business plan for disaster. The bots have already arrived, and they are exploiting every weakness.