Hi, robot: Half of all internet traffic now automated

Imperva’s 2025 Bad Bot Report indicates that bots—particularly malicious ones—now outpace human traffic online, with bad bots rising to 37% of traffic in 2024; threat activity spans credential stuffing–driven account takeovers, scraping, payment fraud, scalping, browser identity spoofing, residential proxy/VPN use, CAPTCHA solving, and direct API abuse, with travel, retail, and education most targeted, while the piece emphasizes that mitigation largely lies with web application operators and offers consumers basic hygiene advice (unique passwords, anti-malware, avoiding risky VPNs/router exposure).