New data released on Dec. 3 by cybersecurity company CHEQ revealed that bots and fake users made up 35.7% of all online shoppers this Black Friday.
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Among the forms of fake traffic uncovered by CHEQ were malicious scrapers and crawlers, sophisticated botnets, fake accounts, click farms and proxy users as well as a host of illegitimate users committing ecommerce-related fraud. The study was conducted across a pool of over 42,000 websites in North America, Europe and Asia, applying hundreds of cybersecurity tests to each website visitor to determine their authenticity.
Ecommerce sites were found to be particularly vulnerable, with high exposure to carding attacks, chargeback fraud, data breaches, fake sign-ups and other types of disruptive activities.
"Fake website traffic is a year-round problem, but this Black Friday we've seen a real sharp spike in the online retail sector," said CHEQ CEO Guy Tytuniovich. "This is not a huge surprise to us, given the increase in ecommerce activity, a trend accelerated by the global pandemic. Ultimately, cybercrime follows the money, especially in sectors where business activity is on the rise."
