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AI Bot Attacks Increase 10-Fold, Report Reveals
Thales said bots made up more than 53% of web traffic in 2025, while AI agents blurred the line between legitimate and malicious automation.
- On Thursday, Thales released its 2026 Bad Bot Report, revealing that AI-driven bot attacks surged 12.5 times throughout 2025, marking a fundamental shift in how the internet operates.
- Automated activity now represents more than 53% of all global internet traffic, up from 51% the previous year, as bots increasingly outpace human interaction across digital environments.
- Financial services accounted for 24% of all bot attacks and 46% of account takeover incidents, while 27% of bot attacks targeted APIs to bypass user interfaces and interact directly with backend systems.
- Tim Chang, Global Vice President and General Manager of Application Security at Thales, stated that traditional blocking methods are insufficient and organizations must adopt governance-based models combining visibility and behavioral analysis.
- Emerging AI agents now interact directly with applications and APIs to perform complex tasks, blurring lines between legitimate automation and nearly 40% of traffic classified as malicious 'bad bots.
Insights by Ground AI
14 Articles
14 Articles
Attacks by AI-Powered Bots Have Increased 12.5 Times, According to Thales' Report on Malicious Bots.
MEUDON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 29, 2026-
·Nebraska, United States
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MEUDON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr. 29, 2026-
'The challenge is no longer identifying bots. It’s understanding what the bot, agent, or automation is doing': New report flags 40% of all internet traffic is now bad bots
The Dead Internet Theory is very much alive, as Thales finds bad bots taking up more and more of global internet traffic.
·United Kingdom
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Bad Bots in the Agentic Age: What the 2026 Thales Bad Bot Report Reveals
Bad Bots in the Agentic Age: What the 2026 Thales Bad Bot Report Reveals josh.pearson@t… Thu, 04/30/2026 - 07:31 The modern internet is becoming less human by the day. Bot traffic is increasing, and human traffic is shrinking. Malicious automated traffic is getting harder to spot. The Thales 2026 Bad Bot Report, now in it’s 13th consecutive edition, is the most significant yet , as AI agents accelerate a permanent shift toward machine-driven in…
Coverage Details
Total News Sources14
Leaning Left2Leaning Right1Center3Last UpdatedBias Distribution50% Center
Bias Distribution
- 50% of the sources are Center
50% Center
L 33%
C 50%
R 17%
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