▪Introduction▪Bots 101▪BOTS Act and what it covers (and doesn’t cover)▪How bots can impact your major onsales and

associated mitigation strategies ▪StubHub case study▪Q&A

Rami EssaidCEO & Co-founder, Distil Networks

Niels SodemannCEO & Co-founder, Queue-it

Distil Networks is the only proactive and precise bot mitigation solution for web applications, mobile, and APIs.

▪Founded in 2011▪180 employees▪5 offices▪$65 million in funding

The use of Queue-it has ensured online fairness during high-demand online events for more than 1.5 billion consumers worldwide. ▪Founded in 2010▪63 employees▪2016 TTA winner of Supplier of the Year

DenmarkSilicon Valley

Awards and Analyst Recognition

The only anti-bot solution to be included in Gartner’s Online Fraud Detection Market Guide 2-years running

“Distil’s ability to analyze behavior provides the best chance of detecting and blocking bot-driven attacks.”

“Clear innovation compared to similar services.”

2017 WINNER: Best Fraud Prevention Solution

Telling the story together

Bots 101

Good bots▪ Search engine crawling▪ Power APIs▪ Check system connectivity & status

A ‘bot’ is an automated program that runs on the internet

Bad bots▪ Steal content▪ Scan for vulnerabilities ▪ Perform fraud etc.

Traffic Distribution by Type, 2016

 

What concerns you most about the impact of bots on your organization’s website(s)?

▪ Website Security▪ Transaction Fraud▪ Lost Revenue to Scalpers▪ Poor Customer Experience

Survey

How are you addressing your bot concerns?

▪ Addressing now▪ Plan to address this year▪ Plan to address next year▪ No plans to address▪ Don’t know

Survey

The BOTS Act explained

▪ Prohibits the circumvention of a security measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for an event with an attendance capacity > 200 pers.

▪ Prohibits the sale of an event ticket obtained through such a circumvention violation if the seller participated in, had the ability to control, or should have known about it

BOTS Act key prohibitions

▪Scalping▪Sniping▪Spinning

20% of traffic bad bots

OWASP Automated Threats relevant to BOTS Act

Ticketing Bots Sophistication

Other legislation

▪Must Have ProtectionsProhibits the circumvention of a security measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for an event with an attendance capacity > 200 pers.

Who does it impact? Primary Ticketing.

▪Federal Trade Commission Audits:

Treats violations as unfair or deceptive acts under the FTC Act. The bill provides authority to the FTC and states to enforce against such violations

▪Must Have ProtectionsProhibits the circumvention of a security measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for an event with an attendance capacity > 200 pers.

Who does it impact? Secondary Ticketing.

▪FTC Audits Treats violations as unfair or deceptive acts under the FTC Act, provides authority to the FTC and states to enforce against such violationsProhibits the sale of an event ticket obtained through such a circumvention violation if the seller participated in, had the ability to control, or should have known about it

Can you enforce?

Who does this impact? Venues.

Can you comply? Can you cooperate?  

If you aren’t bypassing security measures on a website in order to get tickets, you aren’t breaking the law.

▪ Doesn’t eliminate the ability to buy & resell tickets obtained legally

▪ Doesn’t address historical relationships between sellers and reseller

▪ Doesn’t make the 40% of tickets not on public sale magically reappear

What the BOTS Act does not address

▪Bots: scapegoat for a bigger problem in ticketing

▪Humans + scripts: Cubefarm of people operating bots with industry experts managing them

▪7 years + $25M later, FBI cracks down in 2010

▪Ken Lowson now a wiseguy turned good

…and then there’s Wiseguys

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-man-who-broke-ticketmaster

▪Precise log in, processing thousands of purchases faster than any human

▪Fooling CAPTCHA, with huge database of combinations + operating at lightning speed

▪Securing best seats & selling them at a steep markup for resale to the public

How they did it

Source: U.S. Attorney Office, The Star Ledger

Other ‘wiseguys’ like ShowsOnSale continue to pop up, historically hard & expensive to prosecute

Why you can’t sell out in 20 minutes

Ticket onsales timeline

It’s not possible to sell out in less than 2x basket/cart timeout time

More info: https://queue-it.com/presentation-can-you-sell-out-in-2-minutes-no-learn-why/

In other words, as a venue, organization or ticketing software platform, it is still on you to defend against this fraudulent activity during your major onsales

How bots abuse the logic of online ticket sales

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Before onsale: Account Creation

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Before onsale: Account Takeover

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Account Takeover Attacks

Financial fraudTargets are accounts at financial or e-commerce services that store users’ banking details. The attackers perform unauthorized withdrawal from bank accounts or fraudulent transactions using the credit/debit cards on file.This includes virtual currency such as bitcoin, in-game currency, and rewards programs. This is all worth real money.

Account Takeover Attacks: Why?SpamSpam can appear in any service feature that accepts user-generated content, including discussion forums, direct messages, and reviews/ratings, degrading platform integrity and brand reputation.

PhishingAttackers can assume a compromised user’s identity and launch phishing attacks on others in his/her social circle to steal their credentials, personal information, or sensitive data.

“Over 50% of web applications attacks use stolen credentials.”

“An attack on one company is a potential threat to all companies.”

“Mitigating these types of account takeovers is critical to maintaining customer loyalty.”

Breaches in the News

Image: Verizon

Sources: Krebsonsecurity.com, Bankinfosecurity.com, Bloomberg.com, & Privacyandsecuritymatters.com, Verizon Data Breach Incident Report

Hotmail - 33M Logins/Pwds - May 2016LinkedIn - 167M Logins/Pwds - Nov 2012VK.com - 100M Logins/Pwds - June 2016Mail.ru - 57M Logins/Pwds- May 2016Yahoo! - 40M Logins/Pwds - May 2015Tumblr - 65M Logins/Pwds - June 2016

Account Takeover Bots Sophistication

Day of onsale / During onsale

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Volume

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Volume▪To achieve this, spinner bots

create many hits

▪Queue-it can recognize this as coming from same device and will block

▪50% of blocking during a major onsale is due to spinner bots

Speed

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Speed▪Any speed scripted

bots arriving before the event are placed in the randomized pre-event waiting room before the event launches

Pre-event queue page Live event queue page

During ticket purchase

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Credit card fraud

Multiple purchases, exceeding limits

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IP Address

Header & User Agent InformationCookie Browser 200+ Attributes of data Navigator, WebGL, Plugins, Audio, Video, etc.

Tamper proofing layer

Distil Hi-Def Fingerprint

Identification Must Go Beyond the IP Address...

StubHub Case Study

StubHub Case StudyAccount Takeover and Fraud

“Distil helped us greatly reduce transaction fraud and account takeovers.”

Marty BoosCIO, StubHub

StubHub Case StudyTicket Scraping

“Competitive data mining for ticket prices and inventory information was a constant threat.”

Marty BoosCIO, StubHub

StubHub Case StudySkewed Conversion Tracking

“The number of conversions were greatly deflated because of bad bot traffic. Now that we’re filtering bad bot traffic out, we’re able to see what the real data is and make decisions based on real visitors.”

Marty BoosCIO, StubHub

StubHub Case Study Conclusions In reference to the before, wait and buyer journey:“I like this multi-layered approach”

George Loyer, Director Technical Operations, StubHub

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Q&A

Rami EssaidCEO & Co-founder, Distil Networks

Niels SodemannCEO & Co-founder, Queue-it

Free trial Free trial

www.distilnetworks.com/trial www.queue-it.com/free-trial