Bot traffic is growing.
In 2025, nearly half of all web traffic comes from bots. While some bots are helpful, many bots are harmful, as they scrape data, abuse logins and inflate operational costs.
Bots can hack image puzzles.
Image recognition puzzles are increasingly ineffective as attackers use botnets and advanced techniques to automate logins and exploit web applications.
Bot protection requires a modern CAPTCHA.
A modern CAPTCHA uses proof-of-work (PoW) technology and invisible computational challenges. This approach keeps websites secure while offering a seamless user experience – with no clicks, image puzzles, or cookies required.
Best bot protection service.
Friendly Captcha delivers powerful, cookie-free bot protection through invisible, privacy-first challenges. Its hybrid system combines cryptographic PoW verification with a global risk database to efficiently stop malicious automation without collecting personal data. Try out now ›
Bot protection now stands at the forefront of modern cybersecurity strategy. In 2023, 49 % of worldwide web traffic was generated by bots – nearly half of all internet traffic.
While many bots support critical tasks like search indexing or monitoring uptime, malicious bots are on the rise. From credential stuffing and account takeover attempts to scraping and denial-of-service attacks, bad bots now threaten the availability, security, and performance of digital applications.
Stop Bad Bots With Modern CAPTCHAs
Modern CAPTCHAs serve as a critical line of defense. By introducing challenges that distinguish human users from automated scripts, CAPTCHAs help mitigate malicious bot activity without disrupting legitimate access.
For enterprises, deploying a next-gen CAPTCHA solution like Friendly Captcha is essential to maintain website functionality, protect user data, and ensure secure, inclusive digital interactions and web traffic. Bot protection involves distinguishing between helpful and harmful bots to prevent exploitation.
What is Anti-Bot Protection and Bot Management?
Enterprises use bot management to identify and allow good bots while blocking bad ones. It involves understanding how bots affect the business, analyzing their intent, and responding to bot activity appropriately.
Bot protection proactively defends websites and applications from automated threats by detecting, filtering, and blocking unwanted bot traffic without compromising legitimate user experience.
What Are Bots?
A bot is an autonomous software designed to perform repetitive tasks without direct human oversight. Single bots operating at high frequency are trivial to flag, yet adversaries rarely rely on single sources.
Instead, they deploy distributed botnets, dispersing requests across diverse IP ranges, devices, and jurisdictions to bypass traditional defences.
Good Bots vs. Bad Bots
Not all automation is harmful. Automated bots can be used for both legitimate and malicious purposes, making it essential to distinguish between good and bad bot traffic.
Search engine crawlers, chatbots, and accessibility tools are examples of good bots that improve usability and the user experience. Conversely, bad bots steal content, flood APIs, and commit large-scale fraud like malware distribution and DDoS attacks.
There is also a gray zone where real humans appear anomalous, such as users behind virtual private networks, privacy-enhancing browsers, or assistive technologies. Therefore, effective bot management must balance blocking bad bots without frustrating privacy-conscious users or those relying on assistive technologies.
Modern bot protection and bot management solutions like Friendly Captcha combine cryptographic puzzles with a global risk data base.
Friendly Captcha’s Bot Protection Stops Bad Bots
Automated attacks require automated defense strategies. The EU-based privacy-first CAPTCHA alternative offers a two-layered security that blocks malicious bot traffic and malicious activities. At the same time, Friendly Captcha doesn’t lock out humans. This makes Friendly Captcha the most accessible CAPTCHA solution you can find.
How It Works
Friendly Captcha is the only sophisticated proof of work based CAPTCHA solution on the market. Friendly Captcha uses a combination of advanced cryptography and advanced risk signals evaluation with full privacy protection.
Each user gets a unique cryptographic puzzle which is solved by the user’s browser in the background. The invisible challenge system does not rely on tracking or HTTP cookies.
| Threats | Description | Friendly Captcha Response |
|---|---|---|
|
Account takeovers with stolen username-password pairs |
Proof-of-work slows velocity; global risk data base flags abnormal login bursts |
|
|
Brute Force Bots |
Systematic password guessing via repeated login attempts |
Puzzle-based proof-of-work enforces per-request cost; abnormal request patterns are rate-limited or blocked |
|
Fake Users |
Mass sign-ups for spam or coupon abuse |
Dynamic risk scaling per registration thwarts high-volume automation |
|
Spam Bots |
Automated form submissions and comment flooding |
Invisible CAPTCHA challenges make spam unprofitable |
|
DDoS Bots |
Flood of requests and messages to exhaust systems |
Client-side computation imposes nonlinear cost on attackers |
|
Rapid password-rotation attacks against authentication endpoints |
Detection of failed-login cascades; dynamic puzzle difficulty escalates |
Organizations and enterprises that care for security and customer experience use Friendly Captcha to manage good and bad bots in real time, based on a global risk database. The dashboard offers comprehensive analytics and logs to track all bot activity.
Benefits of Friendly Captcha Bot Management
Stop bad bot attacks: Friendly Captcha bot protection prevents account takeovers, DDoS attacks, or brute force attacks as well as other malicious bot activity.
Robust security: Friendly Captcha bot management features robust security, which includes invisible proof-of-work challenges and data reconciliation based on a global risk database.
Prevention with CAPTCHAs: Friendly Captcha uses innovative bot detection methods and technology without bothering real users. Total CAPTCHA accessibility for those with specific need included!
Easy set-up: Friendly Captcha bot management can be installed in just three steps and under ten minutes. Find pre-built integrations for the fastest set-up.
Friendly Captcha analyzes user behavior and detects anomalies in internet traffic. It does not categorize users as strictly black or white, bot or not.
Start your free 30 day trial and find the perfect bot protection plan that fits your needs. Sign up now!
FAQ
Bot protection refers to technologies and strategies such as CAPTCHA or multi factor authentication to detect, manage, and block unwanted or malicious internet bot traffic while allowing legitimate bot and human traffic through. These automated attacks and threats can range from simple spambots, credential stuffing, or DDoS attacks to sophisticated programs that mimic human behavior to bypass security controls and launch cyberattacks.
Friendly Captcha takes a privacy-first approach to bot protection, using invisible proof-of-work challenges that run in the background. This approach provides strong security without disrupting the user experience.
Bot management is a broader strategy for handling all automated Internet traffic, while bot mitigation is a tactic to block or manage malicious bot activity. Friendly Captcha supports both bot management and bot mitigation with a two-layered defense: lightweight cryptographic puzzles for real-time protection and a global risk database for long-term traffic insights.
Other bot protection strategies, beyond bot management and bot mitigation, involve a multi-layered and technical approach to detects and counteract increasingly sophisticated automated threats. These strategies are often combines into a comprehensive bot management solution that includes a secure, modern CAPTCHA solution such as Friendly Captcha that can adapt to evolving bot tactics.
A botnet is a network of internet-connected devices, such as computers, smartphones, and smart home appliances, that have been infected with malware and controlled by a central attacker. A single cybercriminal, or “bot herder” as they are known, can remotely control these devices, or “zombies”, without the owners’ knowing. By orchestrating thousands, or even millions, of these bots, attackers can launch powerful, large-scale cyberattacks that are difficult to trace. Friendly Captcha helps defend against botnet-driven attacks by requiring each device to complete a lightweight cryptographic puzzle before gaining access. This makes large-scale automation impractical and expensive for attackers.
No single company offers the “best” bot protection because the ideal solution depends on a company’s specific needs, size, and type of traffic. Cybersecurity experts and industry reports highlighted Friendly Captcha as the best bot protection solution. It offers an invisible, frictionless CAPTCHA alternative that complies with GDPR, WCAG, and other global privacy standards while stopping sophisticated bots in real time.
It’s hard to name a single “most trusted” bot protection software, as trust is subjective and depends on various factors. Friendly Captcha is widely recognized and highly trusted within the industry for their advanced bot protection capabilities and reliability. Key indicators are strong analyst ratings due to its global risk database, best usability, and proven effectiveness against advanced bots.
Anti-bot protection is a subset of cybersecurity focused specifically on detecting, blocking, preventing, and mitigating malicious automated programs known as bots. Its core purpose is to prevent malicious bots from exploiting websites, applications, and APIs while allowing legitimate bots and human traffic to pass through. This term is often used interchangeably with “bot protection” and is an essential part of an effective bot management strategy. Friendly Captcha offers advanced anti-bot protection through its unique combination of cryptographic proof-of-work and behavioral risk analysis. The next-gen CAPTCHA is designed to defend against automated threats without burdening real users.
The word “bot” is short for “robot”. In the context of the internet and cybersecurity, it refers to an automated software application that is programmed to perform specific tasks without human intervention. While some bots are useful (like indexing search engines or monitoring uptime), others are malicious and are used for a range of harmful activities (like credential stuffing, DDoS attacks, or scraping content). Friendly Captcha helps distinguish between good bots and humans and bad bot traffic, ensuring your site remains secure, accessible, and high-preforming.
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