Botnets are globally responsible for over 95% of malicious web traffic, according to research conducted by managed cybersecurity provider Trustwave.
For the research, Trustwave implemented a network of honeypots located in multiple countries including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the UK, China, and the United States.
“By distributing honeypots in such a manner, we can gather a reliable set of information on the methods and techniques used by attackers and their botnets, allowing a comprehensive understanding of the current database threat landscape,” Trustwave said in the research.
As a result of this research, Trustwave was able to identify the exploitation of a few specific vulnerable enterprise applications in the wild, including Forta GoAnywhere MFT, Microsoft Exchange, Fortinet FortiNAC, Atlassian Bitbucket, and F5 Big-IP, which were exploited days after the release of their proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit codes.
Most malicious traffic was from botnets
During its six-month period that ended May 2023, the research claims analysis of 38,000 unique IPs, downloading a little over 1,100 payloads served in exploitation attempts.
“Almost 19% of the total recorded web traffic was malicious, and botnets were responsible for over 95% of the malicious web traffic detected,” the report said.
