Malicious Bots Account for 39% of All Web Traffic

According to cybersecurity company Barracuda Networks, from January to June 2021, 64% of internet traffic was generated by automated tools. The majority of this bot traffic originated from servers hosted in public cloud platforms like AWS and Microsoft Azure, with both contributing roughly equal amounts.

Potentially dangerous bots—including basic web scrapers, attack scripts, and advanced bots capable of bypassing standard security measures—made up about 40% of the total traffic, according to the company’s report. Most of these advanced bots targeted e-commerce applications and login portals.

The highest number of sources for malicious bot traffic was recorded in North America, where bots were mainly hosted in public data centers. In European countries, attackers preferred to deploy their bots through VPS providers or even home networks.

The report also noted that, unlike “good” bots (such as search engine crawlers, social media bots, and monitoring tools) that operate regardless of the time of day, “bad” bots are typically most active during standard business hours (from 8–9 a.m. to 6 p.m.). This suggests that attackers try to hide their traffic within the general flow, which is higher during these hours.

“Some bots—like search engine crawlers—are perfectly legitimate, but the research showed that more than 60% of bots are capable of malicious activity online,” commented Nitzan Miron, Vice President of Product Management and Application Security at Barracuda. “If left unchecked, these programs can steal information, disrupt websites, and even cause data breaches. That’s why detecting and effectively blocking bot traffic is so important.”