Question

Bot: What is it? types and functions

Answer 1

What is a bot?
How does a bot work?
What functions can a bot perform?
What is a bot made of?
Self-learning bots and rule-based bots
What kinds of good bots are there?
What malicious bots exist and how do they work?
What types of attacks can a botnet carry out?

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Bot: What is it? types and functions

The bots make up about half of the current Internet traffic. They handle all kinds of tasks, such as simulating human communication on social media, searching for web content for companies, optimizing the operation of search engines, automating customer service or facilitating criminal activities such as data theft, scam or DDoS attacks..

The bots are digital tools and as such can be used for good or evil. Knowing what these programs consist of and knowing their functions in depth can be beneficial for companies in order to automate simple and repetitive tasks or discover in which aspects they must reinforce their own cybersecurity measures to prevent attacks.

Index

1. What is a bot?
2. How does a bot work?
3. What functions can a bot perform?
4. What is a bot made of?
5. Self-learning bots and rule-based bots
6. What kinds of good bots are there?
7. What malicious bots exist and how do they work?
8. What types of attacks can a botnet carry out?

What is a bot?

The English term bot derives from the word robot . Like mechanical robots, Internet bots are programmed to perform specific and repetitive tasks . To do this, they run clearly defined commands in the form of algorithms and scripts , which they can implement faster than anyone. The bots are therefore computer programs that act autonomously and automatically and not depend on participation or human supervision to perform their duties..

The first bot on the Internet was the World Wide Web Wanderer, implemented in 1993, which measured the growth of the network and entered the collected data in the so-called Wandex index. Since then, the fields of application of bots have diversified. For example, chatbots are used in customer support, social bots in social networks, web crawlers to analyze websites, and botnets to send spam and carry out phishing attacks .

How does a bot work?

To imagine how a bot works , the easiest thing is to compare it to a physical robot. Unlike the latter, it does not consist of pieces of machinery such as screws, nuts, plates and cables, but of code . The code contains the commands and instructions that tell the bot how to actively or reactively communicate with human users, systems, or other bots ..

Bot design can be very simple, but complex code and artificial intelligence are also implemented in modern bots , which sometimes can barely be distinguished from a person on social media. Nowadays, programming a bot is within the reach of anyone, even the most layman, thanks to the many tools and interfaces available online designed to create simple and complex bots . For example, Twitter gives you the option to create your own chatbots to tweet, retweet, and like.

The following snippet has been taken from the code of a chatbot . In this example, the bot is based on the XML-based AIML markup language , which is often used to program them.

  <aiml> <category> <pattern>¿Cómo te llamas?</pattern> <template>Me llamo Chatbot.</template> </category> <category> <pattern>¿Qué eres?</pattern> <template> <srai>Quién eres.</srai> </template> </category> </aiml>  

Depending on the algorithms established in the code, bots can perform various simple or complex tasks. Communication takes place mainly through platforms and Internet - based services , such as instant messaging (IM, of the English instant messaging ) or Internet Protocol Relay Chat (IRC).

What functions can a bot perform?

The functions and tasks of a bot can be as varied as its areas of application on the Internet. Some of its most common functions are the following:

• Support of communication services in instant messaging services, such as Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp .
   
• Independent data scraping, as well as by data crawling , that is, search, analysis and indexing of website content using keywords, hashtags or pattern matching.
   
• Simulation and automation of communication using specific keywords, algorithms or hashtags (for example, in chats, websites or customer service).
   
• Use of interfaces with other applications and bots to perform additional functions (for example, collect and present data from weather or traffic applications).
   
• Automated services such as translation, orders or personalized advertising.
   
• Game functions (like chess)
   
• Creation of botnets or computer networks dedicated to data theft, scam and DDoS attacks.

What is a bot made of?

A bot basically consists of three main components :

1. Application Logic or Workflow Logic: The executable, machine-readable code that programmers write to define the bot's functions and tasks .
    
2. Database: contains basic data and information that the program can use to carry out its functions. As in the case of search engine bots (web crawlers), the database can be actively expanded.
    
3. API (application programming interface): are program interfaces that allow developers to access the functions of other applications without writing them personally. Using special code interfaces, APIs can embed third-party software commands into bot code and extend its functionality. For example, a chatbot can incorporate the function of a traffic application in its code and provide users with information about it through the interface.

Self-learning bots and rule-based bots

The bots simple design using the principle of programming if-then-else , rules-based, and they execute clear, pre-programmed commands and tasks. Today, modern bots can also be developed using artificial intelligence, expanding their own database, and learning new features and terms. In this sense, bots can be divided into two types: rule-based and self-learning .

Based on their main functions, both rule-based and self-learning bots are divided into five categories:

1. Entertainment bots
2. Trading bots
3. Bots Service
4. News bots
5. Malware bots

What kinds of good bots are there?

The bots are used in a variety of areas on the Internet but everyone can serve both legal purposes as illegal.

The most common benign bots are:

• Social bots : a term that encompasses all the bots that operate on social networks and take on automated tasks in various fields, from assistance, frequently asked questions or direct messaging to leaving comments, generating 'likes', sharing, retweeting and following.
   
• Web crawlers: These bots collect and evaluate data and information from websites to improve the performance of search engines and comparison portals, register and index new web content, create links and optimize search queries.
   
• Chatbots - mimic human chat users and simulate natural communication. For example, in customer service, they can be obvious bots that answer customer queries and frequently asked questions, or incognito bots that pretend to be a real user.
   
• Game bots : appear in video games as artificial players (non-player characters).
   
• Shop bots : they compare the prices of online stores and look for the best offers, or select the most popular sales platforms for users.
   
• Monitoring bots : monitor the status of systems or websites.

Note

To determine which directories on a website can be read by web crawlers, i.e. search engine bots , the standard robot exclusion protocol , better known as robots.txt, is used. In this file, crawlers find instructions that tell them what website data is available to index and analyze. Therefore, using robots.txt you can influence the appearance of your website in the search results.

What malicious bots exist and how do they work?

Although bots have many positive functions and are part of many services that would be inconceivable without them, such as search engines, instant messaging or comparison portals, they have a terrible reputation due to hackers and malware attacks , since many are developed expressly for illegal and harmful purposes.

Types of malicious bots include the following:

• Bots for propaganda or manipulation: social bots that pretend to be a user profile, influence the formation of opinion in digital media, disseminate political statements, fake news and conspiracy theories or react to comments and publications based on keywords.
   
• Bots for scams or phishing : stealing data through pseudoenlaces, fake emails and fraudulent websites.
   
• Bots of keylogging : record traffic messages or recorded, stored and forwarded all activity on a computer.
   
• File sharing bots : they respond to specific search queries and show the user a specific link, depending on the search term. If the person clicks on the link, the bot can infect their computer.
   
• Bots of spam : send unwanted bulk and use address books and contact unsuspecting users to expand their range emails spam targeted manner.
   
• Zombie bots : these are computers that have been infected with malware by other bots or that have become part of a botnet and that provide computing performance to carry out large attacks. It is often difficult to identify the computers that are part of a botnet .
   
• Botnet : refers to the set of infected computers connected to a network and used by the users of malicious bots to perpetrate DDoS attacks.

What types of attacks can a botnet carry out?

The bots malware serve several illegal purposes, such as:

• Data theft and identity theft through scraping, phishing and keylogging of confidential information, such as passwords and bank and personal details.
   
• Distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks , whose massive data traffic can paralyze servers.
   
• Using back doors in a computer's security system to infect the system.
   
• Spam forwarding to redirect data packets.

Here are the five most common large-scale attack types perpetrated by bots :

• DDoS Attacks: Targeted Server Overload (see above).
   
• Spam and traffic monitoring: mail server overload or large-scale data theft.
   
• Inventory Denial Attacks: Attacks on online stores in order to have products listed as "not available".
   
• Scraping attacks: data theft and sale.
   
• Credential stuffing attacks - Use of stolen account data and large-scale automated login attempts.

In summary

If you do online marketing tasks, you should take advantage of good bots to simplify and automate them. In addition, managing bots is an essential part of business cybersecurity , making it easier to identify malicious bots and better protect websites and online stores against their attacks. On the other hand, as you already know, it is always possible to grant access to kind bots .

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