Fastly Rolls Out Tool to Help Battle Bot Attacks

Edge cloud platform Fastly has launched a tool to help companies combat bot attacks.

Fastly Bot Management is designed to help clients prevent fraud, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, account takeovers and other online abuse, according to a Tuesday (April 2) news release.

“Every day, bad actors, including bot operators, are looking to disrupt and fraudulently monetize eCommerce and other Internet traffic with automated attacks, putting organizations at risk of fraud, security attacks, and account takeovers,” Fastly Chief Product Officer Kip Compton said in the release. “Organizations need to quickly protect good traffic and block malicious traffic.”

According to a company news release, the tool aims to help Fastly customers — particularly global eCommerce and media companies — guard against such attacks.

“Fastly Bot Management helps protect websites, applications, and valuable data from malicious automated traffic,” the release said. “The solution instantly classifies non-malicious and malicious bots at the Network Edge and provides multiple server-side and client-side mitigation techniques.”

The tool automatically identifies and stops malicious bots that conduct fraudulent activity, like account takeover and carding attacks. It also performs “unified bot mitigation,” application security and delivery services via a “developer-friendly console” that allows teams to quickly respond to and prevent attacks.

Late last year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency stated in its semiannual “Risk Perspective” report that it had noted “an observed increase in distributed denial of service attacks against the financial sector,” some of which “may be attributed to politically motivated attacks while others are financially driven, coupled with extortion demands.”

Elsewhere on the cybersecurity front, PYMNTS examined the recent data breach at AT&T, which impacted 73 million current and former customers, in a conversation with Bryan Lewis, CEO of Intellicheck.

The real issue with a breach of this size, and with the data involved, he said of the fraudsters, “is that they’re going to use it to steal your identity.”

The stolen data that’s now on the dark web spans includes everything from passwords and names to addresses and Social Security numbers.

Telecoms are especially attractive to fraudsters, added Lewis, who observed to PYMNTS that SIM card fraud and other scams let bad actors gain access to victims’ phone and email accounts, and by extension their bank and brokerage accounts.

“Once I get access to your phone,” he said, “I can change your whole life … I’ve stolen your identity through your phone but now I’m really stealing your identity everywhere.”