The malicious art of creating a botnet has moved to Amazon, with the cloud computing feature of the website serving as a crux for fake web traffic being delivered all over the Internet according to surveys by reputable online marketing services. Although Amazon has tried to shut down this fraudulent activity on its own website, it is much more efficient for each individual business to find the plots in its web traffic and eliminate them itself.
Describing the Fraud
Fraudsters use the Amazon cloud computing service to “capture” so-called good websites and mimic real traffic on the Internet. The traffic creates an environment in which companies are paying for fake ads that are displayed on webpages. The result is a much lower return on investments (ROI) and completely useless impressions on fake bot accounts. Overall, Amazon accounts for around seven percent of the bad web traffic on any business that uses its cloud computing service.
Amazon and the Large-cap Internet Providers
In the analysis of bad web traffic caused by bots, two of the largest IP address generators in the world were being used the most. Comcast and Time Warner were among those Internet providers with the dubious distinction of being used the most by malicious bot account creators. However, the Amazon AWS service topped the list of bad IP addresses by far.
The Solution
Although there is a great deal of bad traffic circulating around the web because of security breaches in Amazon, the upside is that it is relatively easy to catch these bad actors. Currently, it is usually best for a business to completely block the Amazon AWS service if it is being used on a website. Because the ratio of bad to good IP addresses is so lopsided on the Amazon service, a business is not losing a great deal of legitimate traffic if it blocks Amazon completely.
The big Internet companies have released statements that they are doing their best to cut down on the bad Internet traffic that they are responsible for. However, it is currently in the best interests of all businesses to check web traffic for itself.
In the relative anonymity of the Internet there will always be some form of fraudulent activity looking to take advantage of the unwary public. Protect yourself and your business by staying informed, and check out our article on 5 blogging strategies to drive good traffic to your website.