Plans enabled with bot management capabilities
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A bot, short for "robot," is a software program that works on the Internet and handles repetitive tasks. While some bots are helpful, others can harm websites or apps.
Types of bots
Bots fall into two main categories: Good Bots and Bad Bots.
• Good Bots: These bots, like GoogleBot, BingBot, and GPTBot, are transparent about their identity and purpose. They're often called Verified Bots.
• Bad Bots/Malicious Bots: These bots engage in harmful activities like scraping content, spreading spam, or perform credential stuffing attacks. Examples include bots used in DoS and DDoS attacks, web scrapers, and brute force password cracking.
Bot management
Bot management involves blocking bad or malicious bots while still allowing good bots access online resources. This is crucial for keeping the online environment safe and efficient by mitigating potential threats.
Why bot management matters?
Good bot management means legitimate users can have uninterrupted access to online resources by filtering harmful and bad bots. By spotting and stopping bad bots, it keeps servers running smoothly and makes things more secure. Plus, it helps watch for any suspicious bot activity to stop threats before they cause bigger issues.
Heuristics and Machine Learning Detection
Cloudflare, as part of its security setup, utilizes both heuristics and machine learning to detect bots. This helps to proactively block malicious bots based on traffic patterns, user-agent anomalies, and other behavioral markers. By continuously analyzing incoming requests, this method effectively reduces the risk of sophisticated bot attacks.
Security setup
Document360 provides enhanced security with bot detection and blocking for the knowledge base portal and knowledge base site. The bot management operates in Block mode for definite bot requests. This proactive measure prevents unwanted traffic safeguarding data integrity.
User-Agent monitoring and IP/Port blocking
Cloudflare identifies bots using user-agent patterns. For instance, requests with empty user agents or unreleased browser versions are flagged and blocked. Additionally, if a site is accessed using unsupported port numbers, such as port 8443, Cloudflare will automatically block these attempts. Furthermore, it detects unusual traffic patterns coming from the same IP or ISP and blocks such traffic to protect against potential attacks.
CAUTION
Certain bot management measures, such as blocking specific bots or user agents, may impact custom automation scripts or integrations.
NOTE
Implementing these security measures is critical for safeguarding against malicious bot activity and maintaining the integrity of our online platforms.