New data from cybersecurity firm ThreatMetrix has shown a 142 per cent rise in the number of bot attacks on e-commerce merchants, with more than 2.1 billion attempts detected and stopped throughout the last six months of 2018.

The report, based on data from 17 billion digital transactions processed through ThreatMetrix’s digital identity network, found that while the number of sophisticated attacks on retailers dropped during the second half of 2018, the disruptive impact of automated and high volume bot traffic was on the rise.

The analysis also found that the majority (69 per cent) of account logins into e-commerce sites were made via desktop, while identity-testing bot attacks often made up considerably more of an e-commerce merchant’s daily transaction volume than good traffic, making a low-friction online experience for real customers more challenging.

Alisdair Faulkner, chief identity officer at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, parent company to ThreatMetrix, said that fraudsters are master manipulators, with constantly shifting tactics.

“They adapt their attack patterns and modus operandi to take advantage of shifting customer trends, evolving regulations and technological changes, always attempting to stay one pace ahead of businesses.”

“Businesses must be able to piece together digital identity intelligence on a per-user basis so that departures from trusted customer behavior can be identified in near real-time, before a transaction is processed and before fraudsters can operationalise new attack methods.”

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