In 2022, 47.4% of all internet traffic came from bots, a 5.1% increase over the previous year, according to Imperva. The proportion of human traffic (52.6%) decreased to its lowest level in eight years.
For the fourth consecutive year, the volume of bad bot traffic — malicious automated software applications capable of high-speed abuse, misuse, and attacks — grew to 30.2%, a 2.5% increase over 2021.
The staggering level of bad bot activity across the internet in 2022 was the highest since the Imperva Bad Bot Report was created in 2013.
Malicious bot activity is a significant risk for businesses as it can result in account compromise, data theft, spam, higher infrastructure and support costs, customer churn, and degraded online services.