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F5 2025 Advanced Persistent Bots Report: 10.2% of 200B transactions automated despite mitigation, residential proxies widespread

1 fonte(s) · 1 atualização(ões) · publicado 28/03/2025 13:00 · coletado há 3 dias

F5 Labs' 2025 Advanced Persistent Bots Report analyzes more than 200 billion web and mobile API transactions from F5 Bot Defense customers between November 2023 and September 2024. It finds that 10.2% (21.22 billion) of requests were bots or automation. Of these, 4.8% were unwanted bots mitigated by F5, 3.5% were flagged automation and 2.0% came from known financial aggregators. Because the customers have long-running bot protection, the data skews toward advanced and persistent operators who retool or move to softer targets. Hospitality was the hardest hit on web (about 44-45% of traffic, mostly scraping), and Entertainment on mobile API (23.0%). Residential proxy networks are described as a must-have for bot operators.

Detalhes técnicos

  • Unauthorized bot traffic fell in 15 of 26 industry-platform combinations versus the 2024 Bad Bots Review. The largest web declines were in Telecoms (-18.5%), Healthcare (-10%) and Airlines (-9.2%). The largest mobile API declines were in Entertainment (-11.5%) and Fashion Retail (-8.3%).
  • Hospitality (+18.3%) and QSR (+11.2%) saw the largest web automation increases. eCommerce, Hospitality and QSR all rose on both platforms. F5 attributes this to determined operators whose business depends on automation, such as price scraping, rather than to control failure. F5 states no unauthorized bots reached origin servers after mitigation.
  • Sophistication: about 24% of web automation was advanced, versus 13.5% of mobile API. Intermediate bots made up 21.5% of web and 40.0% of mobile API automation. Advanced bots were most prevalent against General Retail (47.78%), Airline (43.10%) and Banking (37.90%) on web, and Telecommunications (50.00%) and Entertainment (37.96%) on mobile API.
  • Mitigation impact: the median mobile API flow dropped from 6.11% bot traffic in monitoring mode to 0.90% with mitigation. The median web flow rose from 7.04% to 7.94%.
  • Credential stuffing: malicious login attempts averaged 10.6% on web and 5.2% on mobile API under mitigation. They reached 33.5% of Technology web logins and about 24% of eCommerce and Entertainment mobile API logins. Telecom had the highest share of advanced credential stuffing bots.
  • Scrapers generated over half of web content requests, and nearly a quarter of web searches were automated. F5 suggests the surge is likely linked to AI agents from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity. Reseller bots automated more than one in five add-to-cart transactions.
  • Residential IP proxies let bots route traffic through home broadband and cellular users, gaining clean IPs that bypass IP-reputation defenses. The report includes an ecosystem diagram and an example monetization dashboard (AppMonetize) for apps that proxy traffic.

Remediação

The article advises maintaining robust, continuously updated anti-bot defenses, since attackers adapt and retry after mitigation. It also advises not relying on IP reputation alone. Per-bot-type recommendations are in the full F5 Labs report.

Linha do tempo

  1. f5.com ↗ · pub. 28/03/2025 13:00 · coletado 19/10 18:02 primeiro registro

    F5 2025 Advanced Persistent Bots Report: 10.2% of 200B transactions automated despite mitigation, residential proxies widespread

    ler a análise desta fonte

    F5 Labs' 2025 Advanced Persistent Bots Report analyzes more than 200 billion web and mobile API transactions from F5 Bot Defense customers between November 2023 and September 2024. It finds that 10.2% (21.22 billion) of requests were bots or automation. Of these, 4.8% were unwanted bots mitigated by F5, 3.5% were flagged automation and 2.0% came from known financial aggregators. Because the customers have long-running bot protection, the data skews toward advanced and persistent operators who retool or move to softer targets. Hospitality was the hardest hit on web (about 44-45% of traffic, mostly scraping), and Entertainment on mobile API (23.0%). Residential proxy networks are described as a must-have for bot operators.

    Technical Details

    • Unauthorized bot traffic fell in 15 of 26 industry-platform combinations versus the 2024 Bad Bots Review. The largest web declines were in Telecoms (-18.5%), Healthcare (-10%) and Airlines (-9.2%). The largest mobile API declines were in Entertainment (-11.5%) and Fashion Retail (-8.3%).
    • Hospitality (+18.3%) and QSR (+11.2%) saw the largest web automation increases. eCommerce, Hospitality and QSR all rose on both platforms. F5 attributes this to determined operators whose business depends on automation, such as price scraping, rather than to control failure. F5 states no unauthorized bots reached origin servers after mitigation.
    • Sophistication: about 24% of web automation was advanced, versus 13.5% of mobile API. Intermediate bots made up 21.5% of web and 40.0% of mobile API automation. Advanced bots were most prevalent against General Retail (47.78%), Airline (43.10%) and Banking (37.90%) on web, and Telecommunications (50.00%) and Entertainment (37.96%) on mobile API.
    • Mitigation impact: the median mobile API flow dropped from 6.11% bot traffic in monitoring mode to 0.90% with mitigation. The median web flow rose from 7.04% to 7.94%.
    • Credential stuffing: malicious login attempts averaged 10.6% on web and 5.2% on mobile API under mitigation. They reached 33.5% of Technology web logins and about 24% of eCommerce and Entertainment mobile API logins. Telecom had the highest share of advanced credential stuffing bots.
    • Scrapers generated over half of web content requests, and nearly a quarter of web searches were automated. F5 suggests the surge is likely linked to AI agents from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity. Reseller bots automated more than one in five add-to-cart transactions.
    • Residential IP proxies let bots route traffic through home broadband and cellular users, gaining clean IPs that bypass IP-reputation defenses. The report includes an ecosystem diagram and an example monetization dashboard (AppMonetize) for apps that proxy traffic.

    Remediation

    The article advises maintaining robust, continuously updated anti-bot defenses, since attackers adapt and retry after mitigation. It also advises not relying on IP reputation alone. Per-bot-type recommendations are in the full F5 Labs report.