• DoS or DDoS bots : Where excessive bot traffic is intentionally used to overwhelm a server ’ s resources and prevent a service from operating .
• Denial of inventory attacks : Programmes that target online shops to list their products as “ not available ”.
• Click-fraud bots : Produce a vast amount of malicious bot traffic , specifically targeting paid ads to engage in ad fraud .
• Traffic monitoring : Used for overloading mail servers or carrying out large-scale data theft .
How to stop ‘ bad ’ bots in their tracks
As per the article in the
April 2022 edition of The Professional , following standard digital defence advice will go a long way to help keep “ bad ” bots away from a computer . This includes enabling multi-factor authentication on every account that offers it , closing accounts that are no longer used and setting up a password manager to keep track of unique , robust passwords .
Also , remember not to click on e-mails or links from unknown sources . If anything in a message ( online ) or e-mail appears even a little bit “ off ”, check with the purported sender on another platform and confirm that they are the originator .
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