Radware Bot Manager: an intelligent defense against bots:

The Internet is bustling with traffic, but unfortunately, a significant portion of that traffic is not generated by humans. Bots – automated programs – have become ubiquitous. Some of them are useful, like those indexing sites for search engines. But a huge number of them have sinister intentions: they steal data, take over accounts, launch DDoS attacks, manipulate prices, or simply burden the infrastructure, slowing down sites for real users. Traditional security methods, focused on known malware signatures or simple firewall rules, are often helpless against an army of sophisticated, “intelligent” bots that can mimic human behavior. We need a new generation of defense – a system that can distinguish the good bots from the bad, and most importantly, distinguish bots from humans, and do so in real time. It is this critical role that Radware Bot Manager fulfills. At nFlo, we realize that the bot problem is no longer just a technical challenge, but a strategic risk to business, so we are zooming in on a solution that allows you to regain control of your digital front.

What is Radware Bot Manager and what problems does it solve?

Radware Bot Manager is a specialized security platform designed to identify, classify and manage bot traffic in real time. Think of it as an extremely savvy and experienced selector at the entrance of a popular club (your web app, mobile app or API). Its job is not only to let in authorized visitors (real users and good bots), but most importantly to detect and block uninvited intruders (malicious bots) who try to enter under various disguises and with various malicious intentions.

Radware Bot Manager solves a number of critical business and technical problems that are a direct result of uncontrolled bot activity. It protects against attacks on user accounts, such as credential stuffing and brute-force, preventing financial losses and loss of trust. Safeguards valuable data from scraping, protecting intellectual property and competitive advantage. Counteracts DDoS attacks at the application level, ensuring service continuity. Prevents fraud and abuse, such as price manipulation, stock reservations and the creation of fake accounts. Finally, it improves overall infrastructure performance by eliminating unnecessary traffic generated by bots and providing a better experience for real users.

How does artificial intelligence work in detecting malicious bots?

The key to Radware Bot Manager’s effectiveness is its advanced use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Detecting modern bots that can simulate mouse clicks, cursor movements, form filling and even solve simple CAPTCHA tests requires much more than a simple check of IP addresses or User-Agent headers.

The AI algorithms in Radware Bot Manager analyze hundreds of parameters and behavior patterns in real time, building a dynamic picture of each session. They learn what a human user’s “normal” behavior looks like in the context of a given application – how fast he clicks, how he moves his mouse, how long he spends on a page, what action sequences he performs. They then compare each new session with this learned model, looking for subtle anomalies and patterns typical of bots. AI can pick up nuances invisible to traditional methods – for example, interactions that are too fast or too regular, unnatural mouse movements, attempts to use known automation tools, or the origin of traffic from suspicious networks (botnets). This intelligent behavioral analysis makes it possible to accurately distinguish human from machine, even for the most advanced bots.

How does Radware Bot Manager neutralize automated attacks?

Once traffic is identified as coming from a malicious bot, Radware Bot Manager offers a flexible set of response options that can be tailored to an organization’s specific threat and security policies. It’s not always about simple blocking. Possible actions include:

Request/session blocking: The simplest and often most effective method of stopping an attack.
Serving false data (Honeypotting/Deception): A bot can be served false information (e.g., fake login credentials, outdated prices) to waste its resources and gather information about its performance.
Rate Limiting (Rate Limiting): Slowing down the bot to minimize its impact on the infrastructure without blocking it completely (useful, for example, when suspected but not 100% sure).
Presenting a Challenge (Challenge): Forcing a bot to perform a task that is difficult to automate, such as an advanced CAPTCHA test or an interactive challenge.
Tagging and monitoring: Allowing the bot to continue its activity, but tracking its actions for deeper analysis.

Choosing the right response method makes it possible not only to effectively neutralize attacks, but also to minimize the risk of accidentally blocking legitimate users (false positives) and to adapt the defense strategy to different types of threats.

What types of bot attacks can Radware Bot Manager detect and block?

Radware Bot Manager is prepared to combat the entire spectrum of threats generated by automated scripts. Its capabilities include detection and neutralization of such attacks as:

Credential Stuffing and Credential Cracking: Mass login attempts using stolen or guessed credentials to take over user accounts.
Account Takeover (ATO): A variety of techniques designed to gain unauthorized access to existing accounts.
Web Scraping / Content Scraping: automatically downloading large amounts of data from a website (e.g., price lists, product descriptions, content) for use by competitors or for other disreputable purposes.
Denial of Inventory / Inventory Hoarding: Blocking the availability of goods in online stores or reservation services by adding them to the shopping cart in bulk or making false reservations.
Carding / Card Cracking: automatically testing stolen credit card numbers by making small transactions.
Application-level (Layer 7) DDoS attacks: Attempts to drain application server resources by generating large numbers of seemingly legitimate HTTP/S requests.
Form Spamming: Automatically filling contact, registration or comment forms with unwanted content.
False account creation: Mass creation of false user accounts.
Click Fraud: Automatically clicking on ads to defraud advertisers.

The ability to recognize and block such diverse attacks is made possible by multi-layered analysis and intelligent AI algorithms.

How does Radware Bot Manager protect web applications from DDoS attacks?

Although Radware offers dedicated, market-leading solutions to protect against network-level volumetric DDoS attacks, Radware Bot Manager plays a key role in protecting against DDoS attacks targeting the application layer (Layer 7). These types of attacks are often harder for traditional anti-DDoS systems to detect, as they take advantage of seemingly legitimate HTTP/S requests (e.g., bulk searches, logins, shopping cart additions), but which can completely drain application server or database resources on a large scale.

Radware Bot Manager, with its ability to accurately distinguish between human and bot traffic, can identify and block precisely those automated requests that constitute an application-level DDoS attack, while letting through traffic generated by real users. Behavioral analysis, device fingerprinting and other advanced techniques allow it to effectively neutralize these insidious attacks, protecting application availability and performance.

How does Radware’s solution counteract data scraping?

Scraping, or the automatic downloading of content from websites, is a common problem for many companies, especially in industries such as e-commerce, tourism, real estate and media. Competitors can steal price lists, product descriptions, unique content or contact information in this way, violating intellectual property and undermining market advantage.

Radware Bot Manager uses a combination of techniques to effectively counter scraping. First, it identifies known scraping bots based on their signatures and behaviors. Second, behavioral analysis detects unnatural browsing patterns – such as moving too quickly between pages, downloading huge amounts of data in a short period of time, or accessing a site from unusual locations or networks (often from a data center). Third, advanced device and browser fingerprinting techniques help distinguish real users from automated tools, even if those tools try to mask their identities. Once a scraping bot is identified, Radware Bot Manager can block it, slow it down (rate limiting) or trick it with fake data, protecting valuable company resources.

How to effectively protect yourself from credential stuffing attacks and account takeover?

Attacks on user accounts, carried out mainly through credential stuffing (testing stolen logins and passwords from other leaks) and credential cracking (brute-force attempts to guess passwords), are one of the biggest threats to companies with login systems. A successful account takeover (ATO) can lead to the theft of personal data, funds, fraud and serious reputational damage.

Radware Bot Manager offers multi-layered protection against these attacks. It detects mass automated login attempts from botnets by analyzing indicators such as IP address reputation, device fingerprint, and unusual behavior patterns (such as attempts to log in to multiple accounts from a single IP address in a short period of time). AI algorithms can distinguish automated login attempts from the actions of real users, even if the bots try to slow down their actions to avoid simple rate-limiting mechanisms. Once an attack is detected, the system can block suspicious requests, present additional challenges (such as CAPTCHAs), or temporarily block access from suspicious sources, effectively protecting user accounts from takeover.

Summary: Business Benefits of Implementing Radware Bot Manager.

Revenue Protection: Prevent losses due to fraud, price manipulation, account attacks and service unavailability due to bots.
Brand and Reputation Protection: Safeguard against account takeovers, content scraping and other bot activities that can damage a company’s image.
Improving User Experience (UX): Eliminating bot traffic improves site performance for real users, reducing latency and frustration.
Data Protection and Intellectual Property: Preventing scraping bots from stealing personal data, price lists, content and other sensitive information.
IT Infrastructure Optimization: Reduce load on servers and network links by eliminating unnecessary bot traffic, which can lead to cost savings.
Better Quality Analytics Data: Cleansing web analytics data of bot traffic allows you to make more accurate business decisions.

What are the business benefits of implementing Radware Bot Manager?

Investing in advanced bot protection, such as Radware Bot Manager, translates into a number of tangible business benefits. First and foremost is direct revenue protection. Preventing transaction fraud, price manipulation, account attacks leading to stolen funds, or service unavailability due to bot-generated DDoS attacks has an immediate positive impact on a company’s bottom line. Equally important is brand and reputation protection. Safeguarding against incidents such as mass account takeovers or theft of customer data builds trust and protects the company’s priceless image.

Implementing Bot Manager also leads to significant improvements in user experience (UX). By eliminating unnecessary traffic generated by bots, which often slows down the site’s performance, we ensure faster and smoother application performance for real customers, which increases their satisfaction and loyalty. In addition, the system protects valuable data and intellectual property from automated scraping, safeguarding the company’s competitive advantage. From an IT perspective, eliminating bot traffic leads to optimized infrastructure utilization, reducing the load on servers, databases and network links, which can translate into real cost savings. Finally, cleansing web analytics data of bot-generated traffic allows for more reliable information about the behavior of real users, enabling more accurate business and marketing decisions.

How does Radware’s multi-layered approach enhance protection?

Radware Bot Manager’s effectiveness is not based on a single, magical detection mechanism. On the contrary, its strength lies in a multi-layered approach that combines a variety of analysis and verification techniques to create a robust, deep defense:

Static Analysis: The first layer includes basic checks such as HTTP header analysis, User-Agent verification, comparison with lists of known bot signatures, and checking the reputation of IP addresses and affiliations with known hosting networks or data centers frequently used by bots.
Challenge-Based Active Verification: The system can proactively verify the customer using a variety of challenges, ranging from simple (e.g. JavaScript tests) to more advanced (e.g. modern CAPTCHA mechanisms, browser interaction analysis). This allows filtering out less advanced bots.
Behavioral Analysis (AI/ML): The most advanced layer, using artificial intelligence to analyze hundreds of behavioral indicators – the way the mouse moves, the rhythm of clicks, navigation sequences, interactions with forms – to distinguish subtle patterns typical of bots from natural human behavior.
Device and Browser Fingerprinting: Collecting and analyzing the unique technical characteristics of a customer’s browser and device to create their “fingerprint,” which helps identify and track bots trying to mask their identities.

The combination of these multiple layers makes the system much more difficult for attackers to fool. Even if a bot manages to bypass one layer of protection (e.g., by impersonating a known browser), it is likely to be detected by another (e.g., based on unnatural behavior or a unique fingerprint).

How does Radware Bot Manager affect the performance of IT systems?

Paradoxically, implementing an additional security solution like Radware Bot Manager can have a positive impact on the overall performance of the IT infrastructure. The main reason is the elimination of a huge amount of unnecessary traffic generated by malicious and unwanted bots. This traffic, which often accounts for a significant percentage of all website traffic, puts unnecessary strain on application servers, databases, network links and other infrastructure components.

By blocking this unproductive traffic at an early stage, Radware Bot Manager frees up valuable resources that can be used to serve real users. This results in less load on servers, potentially lower network bandwidth consumption and, most importantly, faster application response times for legitimate users. Although Bot Manager’s traffic analysis process itself introduces minimal latency, this is usually unnoticeable to the end user and is compensated many times over by the benefits of offloading the backend infrastructure. As a result, the system becomes more responsive and stable.

Does Radware Bot Manager also protect mobile apps and APIs?

Yes, the protection offered by Radware Bot Manager goes beyond traditional web-based applications accessible through a browser. The solution is designed to protect an organization’s entire digital ecosystem, including:

Mobile Apps: Bots are increasingly attacking the backend of mobile apps, attempting to take over accounts, perform fraud or scrape data directly through the API used by the app. Radware Bot Manager offers a dedicated SDK (Software Development Kit) for mobile applications (iOS and Android) that integrates detection and fingerprinting mechanisms directly into the application, allowing it to effectively identify and block automated traffic coming from mobile devices.
APIs: APIs have become a key component of modern architectures, but they are also an attractive target for bots. Attackers can use APIs for data scraping, credential stuffing attacks, or attempts to manipulate business logic. Radware Bot Manager can analyze traffic directed to APIs, identify automated requests and apply appropriate protection policies, securing these critical interfaces from abuse.

Providing protection for mobile applications and APIs is as important today as securing traditional websites, and Radware Bot Manager provides the tools to do just that.

What is the process of implementing Radware Bot Manager in an organization?

Radware offers flexible deployment options for Bot Manager to fit different architectures and customer needs. The most common models are:

Integration with CDN or Radware Cloud: Traffic to the application is first routed through Radware’s global network (CDN or dedicated cloud infrastructure), where it is analyzed and cleansed of bot traffic before it reaches the client’s servers. This is usually the simplest and fastest deployment model, requiring mainly changing DNS entries.
Integration with Existing ADC (e.g. Radware Alteon): Bot Manager can be integrated directly into a Radware Alteon application delivery controller (or potentially third-party ADCs), where traffic analysis is performed locally on the ADC device.
Virtual or Software Deployment: Ability to deploy Bot Manager components as virtual machines or software running on customer infrastructure (on-premise or private cloud).
Integration at the Web Server Level: In some cases, it is possible to integrate by installing the module directly on the web server (e.g. Apache, Nginx).

Regardless of the model chosen, the process typically includes a configuration phase (defining policies, rules), a monitoring and learning phase (where the system analyzes traffic and tunes its algorithms, usually running in read-only mode) and an active protection phase (where the system begins to block or take other actions against detected bots). Support from Radware experts or partners such as nFlo is often key to ensuring a smooth and successful deployment.

What industries need advanced bot protection the most?

Although the problem of malicious bots affects virtually every industry with an online presence, certain sectors are particularly vulnerable and benefit most from implementing advanced protection such as Radware Bot Manager:

E-commerce and Retail: Credential stuffing, carding, denial of inventory, price scraping and product description attacks are daily threats that directly affect revenue and competitiveness.
Financial Services (Banking, Insurance): Account takeovers, transaction fraud, attacks on mobile app APIs pose huge financial and regulatory risks.
Tourism and Hospitality: Price and availability scraping, fake bookings, attacks on loyalty programs are common problems.
Media and Publishing: Scraping unique content, DDoS attacks on news portals, false traffic generation (click fraud) on ads.
Announcement and Community Platforms: creating fake accounts, spamming, scraping user data.
Online Gaming: Attacks on player accounts, cheating, using bots to play unfairly.
Public Sector: DDoS attacks on government websites, attempts to manipulate online voting systems, attacks on public service portals.

In fact, any organization whose business model relies on online user interaction, processes sensitive data or holds valuable intellectual property should seriously consider implementing advanced bot protection.

How does Radware Bot Manager distinguish real users from bots?

Distinguishing an advanced bot from a real human is at the heart of the bot management challenge. Radware Bot Manager employs a multi-faceted strategy based on collective intelligence and contextual analysis:

BEHAVIOUR ANALYSIS: As mentioned, AI algorithms track hundreds of micro-behaviors – how a user moves the mouse, how fast and in what rhythm he clicks, how he navigates a page, how long he reads content. Bots, even advanced ones, often betray unnatural, overly mechanical patterns.
Browser and Device Fingerprinting: The system collects and analyzes dozens of browser (version, installed fonts, screen resolution, language settings, etc.) and device (operating system, hardware type) technical parameters to create a unique “fingerprint.” Bots often have inconsistent or typical fingerprints for automated tools.
Intent Analysis: The system evaluates what a user is trying to do and whether their actions match the typical paths and goals of real users of an application.
Active Verification (Challenges): When in doubt, the system can prompt the user with a challenge, such as a modern CAPTCHA test that is easy for a human but difficult for a bot to automate.
Collective Bot Intelligence: Radware uses attack and bot data collected from all its customers around the world. If a bot is identified as malicious in one location, this information is immediately shared to protect other customers.

The combination of all these methods allows a very precise distinction, minimizing both the risk of letting a malicious bot through (false negative) and the risk of mistakenly blocking a real user (false positive).

How does Radware Bot Manager provide real-time protection?

Protection against bots must work in real time, as attacks often take seconds or minutes. Radware Bot Manager is designed to operate with minimal latency (low latency). Traffic analysis and decision-making is done “inline, “ that is, while processing the user’s request before it reaches the application server (in proxy deployment models like CDN or ADC).

The key real-time mechanisms are:

Fast static and reputation analysis: basic checks happen in a flash.
Powerful AI/ML algorithms: Machine learning models are optimized for rapid on-the-fly behavioral assessment.
Immediate response: When a threat is detected, actions such as blocking or presenting a challenge are taken immediately.
Continuous intelligence updates: Databases of bot signatures, IP reputations and AI models are continuously updated based on Radware’s global network.

This ensures that the system is able to respond to threats when they occur, rather than late, which is crucial for effective protection.

How does the Radware solution deal with new, previously unknown threats?

One of the biggest weaknesses of traditional security systems is their reliance on knowledge of the threat (e.g., signatures). Radware Bot Manager is much better equipped to combat new, unknown bots and attack techniques (zero-day), mainly thanks to:

AI-Based Behavioral Analysis: Instead of looking for known patterns, the system focuses on detecting anomalies and behaviors that deviate from the human norm or typical of good bots. This allows it to identify malicious activity, even if it is carried out by a completely new, previously unknown type of bot.
Adaptive Machine Learning Models: ML algorithms are constantly improving and adapting as new data and attack patterns emerge, learning to recognize new techniques.
Collective Intelligence: The rapid exchange of information about newly detected threats among all Bot Manager instances in the world allows protection against a new attack to be spread in an instant.

Of course, no system can guarantee 100% protection against absolutely every new threat, but Radware’s approach, based on behavioral analysis and AI, significantly increases the chance of detecting and blocking even the most novel bot attacks.

What are the advantages of Radware Bot Manager over traditional protection methods?

Compared to traditional security methods such as standard firewalls, IPS systems or simple WAF mechanisms, Radware Bot Manager offers several key advantages in terms of bot protection:

Specialization: it is a dedicated tool for fighting bots, with much deeper knowledge and more advanced detection mechanisms than general-purpose solutions.
Behavioral Analysis and AI: Goes beyond simple rules and signatures, able to identify bots based on their behavior, which is crucial for detecting advanced threats.
Precision Distinction: It does a much better job of distinguishing humans from bots and good bots from bad ones, minimizing the risk of blocking legitimate traffic.
Layer 7 Attack Protection: Effectively neutralizes application-specific threats such as credential stuffing, scraping and application-level DDoS attacks, against which traditional firewalls are often helpless.
API and Mobile Application Protection: Extends protection beyond web browsers, securing these critical interaction channels as well.
Response Automation: Offers intelligent and flexible automated response options, easing the burden on security teams.

Traditional tools still have their place in the security architecture, but a specialized and intelligent solution like Radware Bot Manager is needed in the fight against modern bots.

How to measure the effectiveness of bot protection after deploying a Radware solution?

Evaluating the effectiveness of a Radware Bot Manager deployment should be based on specific data and metrics. Key metrics worth monitoring include:

Percentage of traffic identified as bots: Shows the scale of the problem and the system’s ability to identify automated traffic.
Number of malicious bots blocked/neutralized: Direct success rate in stopping attacks.
Reduction in the number of failed login attempts: Decrease in the number of credential stuffing or brute-force attempts.
Reduction in the number of accounts seized: Measured through user reports or internal fraud indicators.
Decrease infrastructure load: Measure server CPU utilization, network traffic or database load before and after deployment.
Improving key business metrics: E.g. increase in conversion rate, decrease in rejection rate, improvement in page load time (if bots had a significant impact on performance).
Number of false alarms (False Positives): Monitor whether the system is excessively blocking legitimate traffic (finding the right balance is important).

Regular analysis of these metrics makes it possible not only to assess the return on investment, but also to fine-tune the system configuration for optimal results.

Summary: The Future of AI Bot Protection.

Increasing Intelligence of Bots: Bots will continue to evolve, becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from humans.
AI as Key to Defense: Artificial intelligence and machine learning will play an increasingly important role in analyzing subtle behavioral patterns and detecting anomalies.
Intent Analysis: Systems will increasingly understand the purpose of a bot, not just its technical features.
Contextual Adaptation: Conservation will dynamically adapt to the changing threat landscape and the specifics of the protected application.
Higher Level Automation: We can expect more complex and autonomous response scenarios.

In what direction is bot protection technology evolving and what role does AI play in this?

Bot management technology is in constant evolution, driven by an arms race between bot developers and security solution providers. The future of this field will undoubtedly be shaped by increasingly sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence (AI). We can expect AI algorithms to become even more proficient at analyzing subtle behavioral patterns, learning to distinguish between humans and machines with even greater precision, even in the face of bots using mimicry techniques.

The next direction of development is likely to be deeper intent analysis. Instead of focusing only on whether a given traffic is generated by a bot, systems will increasingly understand what that bot is trying to accomplish (e.g., scrape prices, take over an account, launch a DoS attack) and tailor the response to the level of risk associated with that intent. We can also expect more contextual and adaptive protection, where security mechanisms will dynamically adapt not only to global threat trends, but also to the specifics of the protected application and the typical behavior of its users. Finally, response automation will likely evolve into more complex, multi-stage and potentially more autonomous defense scenarios. AI will not only detect, but increasingly respond intelligently to threats.

Does Radware Bot Manager integrate with other security solutions?

Yes, Radware Bot Manager is designed to work together as part of a broader security ecosystem. It offers integration capabilities that allow you to share information and coordinate with other tools:

Native Integration with Radware Alteon and DefensePro: The tightest integration occurs with other Radware products, creating a consistent platform for protecting applications and infrastructure from a variety of attacks (DDoS, WAF, bots).
Integration with SIEM Systems: The ability to send logs and alerts to Security Information and Event Management platforms (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, ArcSight, Microsoft Sentinel) allows the correlation of bot data with other security events in the organization.
Integration with SOAR Platforms: Combination with Security Orchestration, Automation and Response tools enables Bot Manager actions (e.g., blocking) to be integrated into broader automated incident response flows.
Integration with CDN: The ability to deploy Bot Manager as a service within popular Content Delivery Networks.
Open APIs: The availability of APIs allows for custom integrations with other systems, such as analytics platforms, fraud management systems or internal tools.

These integration capabilities allow Radware Bot Manager to be integrated into an existing security architecture and leverage its data and capabilities within broader operational processes.

In summary, Radware Bot Manager is an advanced and intelligent solution that is an essential part of a modern web, mobile and API application protection strategy. In a world dominated by automated traffic, the ability to accurately distinguish between humans and bots and good bots and bad bots, coupled with flexible and automated response, becomes critical to protecting revenue, reputation, data and providing an excellent experience for real users.

Want to learn how Radware Bot Manager can help your organization regain control of bot traffic and protect against bot-related threats? Contact the experts at nFlo. We will help you understand how this technology can protect your business in a digital world.