What You Need To Know Now…

Don’t Let The Bots Get You Down
Most businesses rely on a robust Web site to generate leads and revenues. If you think only people are visiting your Web site, think again. Approximately 51 percent of Internet activity is created by bots, according to Incapsula, a cloud-based security service. The automated programs taking up space on the Internet come in a variety of forms: search engines like Google represent 20 percent, but the remaining 31 percent could be malicious. The research firm says hacking tools account for 5 percent of all Internet traffic, and so-called “scrapers” (5 percent) pull information from one site and publish it to another to steal search-engine traffic. And we’ve all seen comment spammers (2 percent) who post malware and other irrelevant content to bog down site performance. The remaining space is populated by spyware (19 percent). Incapsula suggests vendors and operators alike install some sort of Web-site security code that allows only humans to access information. It may take an extra step, but it might stop data or bandwidth theft.