General News

Bots can skew your analytics… Is your data lying

to you?

JOHANNESBURG – April 26, 2019 – Data and analytics are increasingly

important tools that help businesses decide where to invest and develop, with

one example of this being UPS, which has used data/analytics to save up to $400

million every year through optimising delivery routes.

“While we rely on big data to provide actionable business intelligence on

everything from delivery logistics to crop yields to innovative marketing

techniques, the information we gather is only as valuable as the context it is

measured against,” says Simon McCullough, major channel account manager at

F5 in South Africa.

“We all know that data can’t really lie, but it can paint a distorted view depending

on how it is interpreted – it’s the old ‘garbage in, garbage out’ maxim and, in this

scenario, the ‘garbage in’ aspect of the equation can be boiled down to one main

culprit – bots.”

A recent F5 white paper says a large percentage of web traffic to a business’s site

is probably from bots and, while bot traffic, whether malicious or benign, may

appear to be legitimate, users should differentiate scans and probes performed

with automated programs from real engagement from customers.

Anton Jacobsz, CEO at Networks Unlimited Africa, a value-added distributor of F5

in Africa, says clicks from bots are not the same as clicks from actual humans.

“These unwanted clicks can skew analytics, distort market intelligence and hurt

the bottom line,” he says. “Sounds a bit dramatic but consider company X whose

customer base is located in South Africa and whose data keeps telling them there

is an influx and continuous rise in traffic from outside the country. Company X

might be inclined to invest resources into expansion to a much larger

international market when, in reality, most of that traffic is just scanning and

scraping its pages.

“The bottom line is that analytics cannot be accurate if companies are not

proactively and effectively managing bots and their interactions with sites and

services.”

Bots cost businesses money

F5’s McCullough agrees but adds that bots can do more than just deliver bad data

that impact on businesses decisions. “They can negatively affect your bottom

line,” he says. “With the growing popularity of cloud-based services provided

through a utility billing model, automated traffic can drive costs up without

providing any business value.”

The paper urges readers to consider the following: ‘every bot request against

your site can be quantified in terms of bandwidth, CPU time and memory costs -

all of which will show up on your monthly bill. More bot traffic means more

compute power in the cloud, more machine instances, and higher costs.

In addition, there are a variety of malicious bots out there. Criminals use

automated programs to steal pricing to boost competitive intelligence, disrupt

business through denial of service, and attempt fraudulent transactions using a

variety of means, all of which can negatively affect the reputation of your

business and your brand. Not to mention that you’re actually paying to render

pages and perform server requests for machines that are actively trying to hurt

your business. These aren’t potential customers; they’re attempts to scan for

vulnerabilities or steal intellectual property.’

“Whether it’s in skewing datasets, increasing utility costs or acting as vectors for

malware, bots can cost businesses money,” says Jacobsz. “Some business may opt

to ramp up security measures but if these are ramped up too high, these same

businesses risk exceeding customer tolerance, effectively DoS’ing their own web

sites and, since blocking all automated traffic isn’t an option, businesses must

investigate how to best facilitate good bots while mitigating damage from the

bad ones.”

Smart WAF; boosting the bottom line

Smart web application firewalls (WAFs) can manage the traffic to web sites,

delineating and filtering automated visits from engagements with actual humans.

Eliminating the large swatch of bot traffic results in better data, which in turn

delivers better business intelligence.

An effective WAF with bot-management capabilities can optimise web properties

by reducing useless traffic, resulting in considerable cost savings. Users can

streamline by serving only real and potential customers, which means that their

security tools are providing real value in decreasing costs in the cloud.

“Smart security solutions can help businesses manage automated traffic while

cutting costs and improving overall security,” says Jacobsz. “With a combination

of bot management and application protection solutions that learn and adapt to

the shifting threat landscape, users can better serve human customers while

optimising their sites and services – all while getting the data-driven insights

their businesses need.”

To find out more, please contact Esti Bosch, F5 product manager at Networks

Unlimited: esti.bosch@nu.co.za.

You can access the F5 Networks report, ‘Get the Clicks that Count’ report here .

About F5

F5 makes apps operate faster, smarter, and safer for the world’s largest

businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands. F5 delivers

cloud and security solutions that enable organisations to embrace the

application infrastructure they choose without sacrificing speed and control. For

more information, go to f5.com.

About Networks Unlimited Africa

Networks Unlimited is a value-added distributor, offering the best and latest

solutions within the converged technology, data centre, networking, and security

landscapes. The company distributes best-of-breed products, including Attivo

Networks, Cofense, Carbon Black, Fortinet, F5, Hypergrid, Mellanox

Technologies, NETSCOUT, NETSCOUT Arbor, ProLabs, RSA, Rubrik, SevOne,

Silver Peak, Thales and Uplogix. The product portfolio provides solutions from

the edge to the data centre, and addresses key areas such as cloud networking

and integration, WAN optimisation, application performance management,

application delivery networking, Wi-Fi-, mobile- and networking security, load

balancing, data centre in-a-box, and storage for virtual machines.

Since its formation in 1994, Networks Unlimited has continually adapted to

today's progressively competitive and evolving marketplace, and has reaped the

benefits by being a leading value-added distributor (VAD) within the Sub-

Saharan Africa market.

Contacts

Networks Unlimited, Michelle Naidoo, +27 (0) 11 202 8400,

michelle.naidoo@nu.co.za

icomm, Vivienne Fouché, +27 (0) 82 602 1635, vivienne@pr.co.za, www.icomm-

pr.co.za