On the second day of OxyCon, Dmitry Babitsky, the co-founder & chief scientist at ForNova, went through a few different methods that websites utilize to recognize suspicious behavior, detect bots, and ultimately block them.
How websites recognize suspicious behaviour?
Below you’ll find what Mr. D. Babitsky listed as the most popular methods recognizing suspicious behaviour online:
- Large amounts of unusual requests and URL’s.
- Missing cookies – if you don’t have cookies, it is suspicious. However, if you do have cookies – they can track you.
- Miscorrelation between different request attributes – such as the IP address location. Make sure you compare your language and time zone with your IP address’.
- WebRTC leaking your real IP address.
- Suspicious browser configuration – e.g., disabled javascript. Different browsers have different javascript. Based on the supported functions on the javascript, the web can double-check you.
- Non-human behavior – if you use the mouse and keyboard, it’ll be fine, but if you use a javascript to click things, it will be easily recognized as a bot. (typing vs. pasting, clicking multiple times on captcha solving, etc.)
- Browser performance analysis and comparison with similar configurations.
How websites track you?
Once you are marked as suspicious, how does the website track you? There are a few ways you can be recognized by:
- Your IP address (if you leak it with WebRTC).
- Your user agent.
- Request, cipher suite (SSH handshake), browser fingerprint (most browsers show your fingerprint).
Our other OxyCon speaker Allan O’Neil has covered fingerprinting topic in day one of OxyCon, so keep a lookout for an article on fingerprinting on our blog.
What websites do when they block you?
When and if you get blocked, a website will give you some punishment. This can be done by:
- Showing you a 404 page.
- Giving you captchas.
- Giving you fake data.
Wrapping up
Thanks to Mr. D. Babitsky for detailing how websites block bots. OxyCon had so many intelligent presentations that we learned so much from, so make sure to check out our blog for more summaries and articles on most OxyCon presentations.
Having a slight FOMO (fear of missing out)? Don’t worry – OxyCon will be held next year as well, so keep a look out for early bird registrations!
