Security News A Wave of Unexplained Bot Traffic Is Sweeping the Web

[Divergent]

Content source

https://www.wired.com/story/made-in-china-niche-websites-are-seeing-a-surge-of-mysterious-traffic-from-china/

From small publishers to US federal agencies, websites are reporting unusual spikes in automated traffic linked to IP addresses in Lanzhou, China.

For a brief moment in October, Alejandro Quintero thought he had made it big in China. The Bogotá-based data analyst owns and manages a website that publishes articles about paranormal activities, like ghosts and aliens. The content is written in “Spanglish,” he says, and was never intended for an Asian audience. But last fall, Quintero’s site suddenly began receiving a large volume of visits from China and Singapore. The amount of traffic coming from the two countries was so high and consistent that it now accounts for more than half of total visits to Quintero’s site over the past 12 months.

A Wave of Unexplained Bot Traffic Is Sweeping the Web

From small publishers to US federal agencies, websites are reporting unusual spikes in automated traffic linked to IP addresses in Lanzhou, China.

www.wired.com

 

[Halp2001]

This wave of bot traffic is like an army of shadows: they conquer nothing, yet they wear down the walls. The danger isn’t in a frontal assault, but in draining resources, skewing metrics, and opening invisible cracks. In the end, what looks like harmless noise is the most subtle form of digital erosion.