Web bots are everywhere. Some are your best friends—indexing your content, automating tasks, and making life easier. Others? Not so much. They scrape your data, overload your servers, and power scams like phishing, financial fraud, and account takeovers. Even “harmless” bots can rack up serious infrastructure costs or accidentally flood your site with traffic, leading to a Denial of Service.
So, how do you tell the good bots from the bad? And more importantly—how do you protect your website without blocking real users?
In this talk, we’ll unveil the full spectrum of web bots, from helpful to harmful, and explore the latest evasion tactics used by bad actors. We’ll dive deep into residential proxies—a powerful tool that allows bad bots to disguise themselves as real users by routing traffic through legitimate devices (like your personal phone or tablet!). While developers can use them for legitimate purposes, e.g. ensuring ads display correctly in different devices worldwide, cybercriminals exploit them to hide their tracks. We’ll share our experience in tackling this challenge at Amadeus, leveraging cutting-edge network detection techniques and IP intelligence, and provide key takeaways for you to apply in your own projects.