Bots are becoming more advanced and more malevolent—meaning that even though they might seem like a harmless pop up message or thread, they can do real damage.
That’s why it’s important that you’re aware of bots and/or fake social media posts, especially when they aim to gain access to your account, influence you to click on something, or ask you to download a harmful file.
Messaging
If you receive a direct message from a bot offering you something or asking you to click on a link or download a file—disregard it! These seemingly harmless requests can do serious damage to your computer, whether that be corrupting your files, keeping your computer hostage until you pay a ransom, or gaining access to your private information.
Log-In & Checkout Pages
According to Radware’s report The Big Bad Bot Problem 2020, 62.7% of bad bots on login pages can mimic human behavior. That means these bots can gain access to your accounts or even create fake accounts. Why would they do this? In order to gain access to your proprietary information like credit card numbers, banking details, social security numbers, and more. Radware also found that 57.5% of bad bots on checkout pages can simulate human behavior when performing these types of attacks.
As we mentioned in a recent post, web scams have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this applies to malicious bot activity as well. In fact, there have been spikes in bot activity against e-commerce, entertainment, and financial services institutions since the pandemic began.
If you encounter a malicious bot, make sure to report it to whichever platform you’re using so that developers can look into it and take it down/freeze or delete the account it’s associated with. Another precaution you can take is to ensure you are using unique passwords on all sites and are changing them on a regular basis.