Impact of Generation Bot Attack
Performing attacks on a website can have diverse impacts, depending on the intent and severity of the attacks. These tools are commonly used for data retrieval, web scraping, and even malicious activities. The impact of these attacks can range from unauthorized access to sensitive information to disruptions in website functionality or even potential security breaches. Below are some direct implication details:
Increased server load: The simultaneous influx of a high number of requests overwhelms the server's capacity to handle them efficiently. As a result, the server may experience performance degradation, leading to slower response times for legitimate users. The impact of increased server load caused by headless browser attacks can be further exacerbated by factors such as the complexity of the requested pages, the amount of JavaScript execution required, and the overall server infrastructure.
Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks: Headless browsers like PhantomJS, Chrome, or Firefox in headless mode can be used to coordinate DoS or DDoS attacks. Attackers can utilize multiple instances of these tools or leverage botnets to flood a website with an overwhelming number of requests. This flood of requests can overpower the server, resulting in it becoming inaccessible to legitimate users.
Data scraping and intellectual property theft: Data scraping using tools like Scrapy allows unauthorized extraction of content from websites, leading to intellectual property theft, exposure of sensitive information like personally identifiable information (PII), financial data, or confidential business information, and violations of terms of service. This can result in financial losses, reputational damage, privacy breaches, and distorted analytics.
Content duplication and plagiarism: Content duplication and plagiarism occur when attackers scrape and duplicate website content, leading to harmful effects such as negative impacts on search engine rankings, reputation damage, decreased user trust, and potential legal implications.
Use-case Based Attack
Account Take Over
Account Takeover (ATO) refers to the illicit practice of identity theft, wherein fraudsters employ bots to gain unauthorized access to a victim's bank accounts, e-commerce platforms, or other types of online accounts.
In the case of an Account Takeover (ATO) attack, we conducted automated login attempts using auto-generated credentials within a restricted timeframe. To make the attack appear more sophisticated, we utilized distinct IP addresses and User Agents for each login attempt. Despite the attack being automated and initiated by the system, the targeted URL allowed these requests to traverse without triggering any alerts or taking appropriate action. The attempt involved systematically trying various combinations of usernames and passwords to gain unauthorized access to user accounts.
Unfortunately, the system did not detect or block these login attempts, allowing the unauthorized requests to proceed unchecked. This indicates a vulnerability in the URL's authentication and authorization mechanisms, potentially exposing user accounts to the risk of unauthorized access and subsequent fraudulent activities.
Form Spam
In this attack, we specifically targeted a widely used form available on the website. Leveraging the capabilities of the Bot Vulnerability Scanner engine, we automated the process of populating the required input values and submitting the form. Our attack involved submitting approximately 50 junk entries, utilizing only 10 IP addresses. Surprisingly, we found that the targeted website lacked necessary preventive measures to mitigate such malicious activities.
Content Scrapping
One of the most prevalent types of attacks is content scraping, and in this case, our focus was on capturing specific information such as the title and date from targeted news articles. We successfully executed this scraping operation on 88 news articles, and the extracted details were stored locally for further analysis. Moreover, this technique can be extended to scrape various types of content available on the website, including complete news articles, blog posts, and even contact information.
Content scraping poses a significant concern as it allows unauthorized extraction of valuable information from websites. In the case of news articles, this information can be repurposed for unauthorized distribution, plagiarism, or even the creation of duplicate websites.
Ads Fake Impression
This use case specifically involves targeting digital advertisements displayed on a website, such as a news site that reserves ad space for its partners or customers. Typically, these ad spaces are sold based on website traffic and specific page sections. In this attack scenario, the attacker focuses on these ad spaces and generates fake impressions, undermining the accuracy of analytics for the customers of the news portal. As a result, the customers' investment in advertising yields no value, while the news portal's reputation is tarnished.
To execute this attack, an automated engine was employed to generate fraudulent impressions. By leveraging only 17 different IP addresses, the engine successfully bypassed the website's defenses without encountering any obstacles. This allowed the attacker to create 71 fake impressions, deceiving the ad analytics systems and misleading the advertisers who rely on accurate metrics to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns.
This type of attack not only affects the financial interests of the advertisers but also undermines the integrity and credibility of the news portal. Advertisers may lose trust in the portal's advertising platform, leading to potential revenue loss and damage to the portal's reputation as a reliable advertising partner.
GDS Query
This specific use case revolves around airline companies that invest a significant amount of money to list their flight details on their websites. In this scenario, the attacker's objective is to extract flight information while each search request incurred costs to the company. During our attempt, we successfully extracted flight details for 76 different routes. The extracted data included crucial information such as the departure location and time, arrival location and time, fare, and the total number of seats remaining on the flights.
By targeting the search functionality of the airline website, the attacker gains unauthorized access to valuable flight information. This not only compromises the privacy and security of the airline's data but also incurs financial losses for the company, as each search request comes with associated costs. Moreover, the extracted flight details can be misused for competitive analysis, price manipulation, or even for planning malicious activities.
Conclusion
By leveraging a Bot Vulnerability Scanner, organizations gain the ability to systematically detect and analyze potential vulnerabilities arising from bot-based attacks. The scanner conducts comprehensive scans of the system or website, employing sophisticated techniques to identify weaknesses, such as account takeover vulnerabilities, content scraping risks, fraudulent impression generation, and unauthorized data extraction.