1.
▪Introduction
▪Bots 101
▪BOTS Act and what it covers (and doesn’t cover)
▪How bots can impact your major onsales and associated
mitigation strategies
▪StubHub case study
▪Q&A

2.
Rami Essaid
CEO & Co-founder,
Distil Networks
Niels Sodemann
CEO & Co-founder,
Queue-it
Distil Networks is the only proactive and
precise bot mitigation solution for web
applications, mobile, and APIs.
▪ Founded in 2011
▪ 180 employees
▪ 5 offices
▪ $65 million in funding
The use of Queue-it has ensured online fairness
during high-demand online events for more
than 1.5 billion consumers worldwide.
▪Founded in 2010
▪63 employees
▪2016 TTA winner of Supplier of the Year
DenmarkSilicon Valley

3.
Awards and Analyst Recognition
The only anti-bot solution to be included
in Gartner’s Online Fraud Detection
Market Guide 2-years running
“Distil’s ability to analyze behavior provides
the best chance of detecting and blocking
bot-driven attacks.”
“Clear innovation compared to
similar services.”
2017 WINNER: Best Fraud Prevention
Solution

4.
Bots 101

5.
Good bots
▪ Search engine crawling
▪ Power APIs
▪ Check system connectivity & status
A ‘bot’ is an automated program that runs on the internet
Bad bots
▪ Steal content
▪ Scan for vulnerabilities
▪ Perform fraud etc.
Traffic Distribution by Type, 2016

6.
What concerns you most about the impact of bots on your
organization’s website(s)?
▪ Website Security
▪ Transaction Fraud
▪ Lost Revenue to Scalpers
▪ Poor Customer Experience
Survey

7.
How are you addressing your bot concerns?
▪ Addressing now
▪ Plan to address this year
▪ Plan to address next year
▪ No plans to address
▪ Don’t know
Survey

8.
The BOTS Act explained

9.
▪ Prohibits the circumvention of a security
measure used to enforce ticket purchasing
limits for an event with an attendance
capacity > 200 pers.
▪ Prohibits the sale of an event ticket
obtained through such a circumvention
violation if the seller participated in, had the
ability to control, or should have known
about it
BOTS Act key prohibitions

10.
▪ Scalping
▪ Sniping
▪ Spinning
20% of traffic bad bots
OWASP Automated Threats relevant to BOTS Act

11.
Ticketing Bots Sophistication

12.
Other legislation

13.
▪ Must Have Protections
Prohibits the circumvention of a security
measure used to enforce ticket purchasing
limits for an event with an attendance capacity
> 200 pers.
Who does it impact? Primary Ticketing.
▪ Federal Trade Commission Audits:
Treats violations as unfair or deceptive acts
under the FTC Act. The bill provides authority to
the FTC and states to enforce against such
violations

14.
▪ Must Have Protections
Prohibits the circumvention of a security
measure used to enforce ticket purchasing
limits for an event with an attendance
capacity > 200 pers.
Who does it impact? Secondary Ticketing.
▪ FTC Audits
Treats violations as unfair or deceptive
acts under the FTC Act, provides authority
to the FTC and states to enforce against
such violations
Prohibits the sale of an event ticket
obtained through such a circumvention
violation if the seller participated in, had
the ability to control, or should have
known about it

15.
Can you enforce?
Who does this impact? Venues.
Can you comply? Can you cooperate?

16.
If you aren’t bypassing security measures on a website in order to get
tickets, you aren’t breaking the law.
▪ Doesn’t eliminate the ability to buy & resell tickets obtained legally
▪ Doesn’t address historical relationships between sellers and reseller
▪ Doesn’t make the 40% of tickets not on public sale magically reappear
What the BOTS Act does not address

17.
▪ Bots: scapegoat for a bigger problem in ticketing
▪ Humans + scripts: Cubefarm of people operating
bots with industry experts managing them
▪ 7 years + $25M later, FBI cracks down in 2010
▪ Ken Lowson now a wiseguy turned good
…and then there’s Wiseguys
Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-man-
who-broke-ticketmaster

18.
▪ Precise log in, processing thousands of
purchases faster than any human
▪ Fooling CAPTCHA, with huge database
of combinations + operating at
lightning speed
▪ Securing best seats & selling them at a
steep markup for resale to the public
How they did it
Source: U.S. Attorney Office, The Star Ledger

19.
Other ‘wiseguys’ like ShowsOnSale continue to pop up,
historically hard & expensive to prosecute

20.
Why you can’t sell out in 20 minutes
Ticket onsales timeline
It’s not possible to sell out in less
than 2x basket/cart timeout time
More info: https://queue-
it.com/presentation-can-you-sell-out-in-2-
minutes-no-learn-why/

21.
In other words, as a venue, organization or ticketing
software platform, it is still on you to defend against
this fraudulent activity during your major onsales

22.
How bots abuse the logic of online ticket sales
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

23.
Before onsale: Account Creation
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

24.
Before onsale: Account Takeover
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

25.
Account Takeover Attacks

26.
Financial fraud
Targets are accounts at financial or
e-commerce services that store
users’ banking details. The attackers
perform unauthorized withdrawal
from bank accounts or fraudulent
transactions using the credit/debit
cards on file.
This includes virtual currency such
as bitcoin, in-game currency, and
rewards programs. This is all worth
real money.
Account Takeover Attacks: Why?
Spam
Spam can appear in any service
feature that accepts user-
generated content, including
discussion forums, direct
messages, and reviews/ratings,
degrading platform integrity
and brand reputation.
Phishing
Attackers can assume a
compromised user’s identity and
launch phishing attacks on
others in his/her social circle to
steal their credentials, personal
information, or sensitive data.

27.
Account Takeover Bots Sophistication

28.
Day of onsale / During onsale
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

29.
Volume
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

30.
Volume
▪ To achieve this, spinner bots create
many hits
▪ Queue-it can recognize this as
coming from same device and will
block
▪ 50% of blocking during a major
onsale is due to spinner bots

31.
Speed
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

32.
Speed
▪ Any speed scripted
bots arriving before
the event are placed in
the randomized pre-
event waiting room
before the event
launches
Pre-event queue page Live event queue page

33.
During ticket purchase
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

34.
Credit card fraud

35.
Multiple purchases, exceeding limits
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

36.
IP Address
Header & User Agent Information
Cookie Browser
200+ Attributes of data
Navigator, WebGL, Plugins, Audio, Video, etc.
Tamper proofing layer
Distil Hi-Def Fingerprint
Identification Must Go Beyond the IP Address...

37.
StubHub Case Study

38.
StubHub Case Study
Account Takeover and Fraud
“Distil helped us greatly reduce
transaction fraud and account
takeovers.”
Marty Boos
CIO, StubHub

39.
StubHub Case Study
Ticket Scraping
“Competitive data mining for
ticket prices and inventory
information was a constant
threat.”
Marty Boos
CIO, StubHub

40.
StubHub Case Study
Skewed Conversion Tracking
“The number of conversions were
greatly deflated because of bad bot
traffic. Now that we’re filtering bad
bot traffic out, we’re able to see
what the real data is and make
decisions based on real visitors.”
Marty Boos
CIO, StubHub

41.
StubHub Case Study Conclusions
In reference to the before, wait and buyer journey:
“I like this multi-layered approach”
George Loyer, Director
Technical Operations, StubHub
Distil Networks Queue-it Distil Networks

42.
Free trial Free trial
www.distilnetworks.com/trial www.queue-it.com/free-trial