Distil Networks will be acquired by cybersecurity company Imperva, reinforcing its market leadership in the application security market.
"Distil Networks is a globally recognized leader in automated attack mitigation, and this deal perfectly aligns with our vision of delivering best-in-class cybersecurity solutions that protect businesses throughout their cloud journey,” says Chris Hylen, CEO of Imperva. The company will integrate Distil Networks’ solution into its security stack to deliver complete protection for applications and APIs, wherever they reside.
Bot management protects companies from automated threats such as fake accounts and credit card frauds, account takeover, digital advertising fraud and spam bots. According to Distil Networks' Bad Bot Report 2019, bots were used to exploit social media platforms in an attempt to influence political dialogue and elections, such as with the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Other industries find themselves victims to bots including:
- Airlines suffer from online travel agents, aggregators and competitors using bots to scrape content such as flight information, pricing and seat availability, while criminals attempt to fraudulently access user accounts that contain loyalty program awards and credit card.
- Competitors use bots to aggressively scrape pricing and inventory information, with criminals using them to commit fraud by stealing gift card balances and to access user accounts and credit card information from e-commerce sites.
- Brokers, scalpers, hospitality agencies and corporations use bad bots to check for event ticket availability and to purchase available seats to resell on secondary markets.
The report also found that stolen credentials from data breaches are creating a worsening bot problem for any online business having a login page. Criminals use bots to test the "viability of stolen credentials." The research showed that every new data breach sees an increased availability of credentials and leads to higher volumes of bad bot traffic, with over 14 billion credentials stolen since 2013.
“Bots are an evolving attack vector that has become a threat to all organizations, no matter the size or location,” explained Tiffany Olson Kleemann, CEO of Distil Networks. “We have been leading the charge to find solutions to better understand, detect and mitigate automated attacks since 2011. Today’s announcement serves as a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of Distil Networks’ team over the past eight years to solve this problem for our customers. We are excited to enter into a new chapter with a company that shares our passion for protecting critical business applications and delivering best-in-class security solutions for all customers.”
“Distil Networks gives us a comprehensive Bot Management solution that identifies, responds to and manages a full range of automated attacks no matter where these applications or APIs are deployed," said Hylen. "We believe Imperva and Distil Networks will create the most comprehensive security platform on the market and we’re excited to make this available to our customers worldwide.”