Detecting Scrapers on E-commerce Websites Using a Reduced Feature Set

  • Umberto Fontana
  • , Elisa Chiapponi
  • , Claudio Costanza
  • , Vincent Rigal
  • , Olivier Thonnard
  • , Martynas Buozis
  • , Hervé Debar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The amount of traffic on the Internet originated by web bots has been on the rise for many years. The use of bots for illicit web content retrieval and functional abuse is rinsing high concerns across website operators which are constantly battling these malicious entities capable of bypassing their anti-bot protection systems. In this work, we study bot behavior inside modern e-commerce websites within the travel industry. After an initial analysis of bot characteristics, we describe a pipeline capable of autonomously detecting sophisticated scrapers. We observed that these scrapers can be easily identified using a reduced set of features designed for an efficient and interpretable detector.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2025 55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks - Supplemental Volume, DSN-S 2025
EditorsMarcello Cinque, Domenico Cotroneo, Luigi De Simone, Matthias Eckhart, Patrick P. C. Lee, Saman Zonouz
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages257-258
Number of pages2
ISBN (Electronic)9798331512033
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2025
Event55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks - Supplemental Volume, DSN-S 2025 - Naples, Italy
Duration: 23 Jun 202526 Jun 2025

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2025 55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks - Supplemental Volume, DSN-S 2025

Conference

Conference55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks - Supplemental Volume, DSN-S 2025
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityNaples
Period23/06/2526/06/25

Keywords

  • Classification
  • Functional Abuse
  • Internet Robot
  • Scraping Bots
  • Web Bot Recognition

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Detecting Scrapers on E-commerce Websites Using a Reduced Feature Set'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this