How to protect bots from cyber attacks

By Tunji Oyelami

Bots are one of the most popular upcoming trends in the tech world. From chatbots to digital wizards, bots are an important part of enabling and enriching user interaction with computers. As a result, bots are increasingly becoming a threat to cybersecurity.

Most security platforms do not recognise or not even aware of bot-related vulnerabilities. Since bots rely on things like native languages ​​and voice communication because they use easy-to-use methods, as a result, many modern security technologies need to adapt to the world of bots. To be more effective in bot space, cybersecurity platforms need to address it.

Below are some of the security challenges to be addressed:

1. Unpredictable behavior: Using natural language management techniques, bot attacks can present almost any combination of behavior that can be misconstrued to be benign.
2. Real-world impact: Attack technologies such as digital assistants can have an immediate impact on the real world. Imagine a bot that could take a small number of IOT devices to start making changes to sensors or home devices connected to the device.
3. Different types of attacks: Web-based attacks targeting bots can use a variety of communication methods, depending on whether voice or text is used, irrespective of whether the environment operates on a messaging platform or an IoT device. This further complicates the task of eliminating the risk completely.

What are the main types of cybersecurity attacks against bots?

1. Bot Virus: This is a type of attack that uses language exchange to inject malware into a host, such as when sending client messages. Many of these types of attacks can use the latest viruses that use bots as a means of transmission.
2. Bot DDOS: Denial of service attacks on bots will infect popular bot hosting platforms before launching new attacks to other physical targets.
3. Bot Phisher: Fisher Bot is a type of attack where a fake bot uses language exchange to obtain important information about the user, such as their credentials, SSN, credit card and other relevant information about the target.
4. Bot Spyware: This is a direct attacker for the bot world. In short, spyware bots harm customers as messaging tools and use them as hosts.
5. Bot Sniffer: Bot Sniffer focuses on disrupting bot networks to access sensitive data. Since most communications between bot users are conducted in the native language via text or voice, bot sniffers can carry a lot of meaningful information.

Tunji Oyelami is a seasoned cybersecurity expert with experience across industries such as Financial Services, Telecoms, and Consulting. He is vast in IS assessments & audit, Information Security Management and Enterprise IT Risk. He holds a master’s degree in computer security from University of Birmingham, UK and has several certifications including CEH, ECSA, LPT, CISA and CISM.