Mechanical stature, cubic splendor, smart systems, and brilliant functionality are some of the conventional features associated with the robots and their extended versions. However, the modern face of robots has a diversified range of uses and applications. 

Bots are web versions of Robots which basically are software applications that execute automated commands on the internet. 

Today, Bots form half of the internet traffic and thus largely impact the internet.  

To better understand what bots are and how they work, let’s take a brief on bots’ origin. In the 1960s, bots were being used initially. But, they grow and develop larger with the growth and development of the internet.  

Initially and primarily, the purpose of bots was to reduce human labor from performing fairly routine-based and monotonous tasks.

Useful bots:

Google Web Crawler is responsible to rank pages on the search engine is a bot. This software regulates the function of SEO by visiting all the available websites. It makes an evaluation of how well a page is performing regarding the information it shares. As a result, the pages with the best search engine optimization appears at the topmost results. 

Moreover, another example of a bot is the automated replies of e-mails sent in case of unavailability or absence.  In order to avoid sending e-mails to everyone while you are not at work, email service’s built-in bots help us to send an automatic reply to all of those who contact. 

As time passes, technology evolves. Today any small or large business can take the help of a software development company to develop their own bot in a few minutes.

One of the most common user-created examples of chatbots is on the websites requiring customer service all the time.

Chatbots work on a specific number of guidelines. The guidelines to a bot can be given in the form of rails, which enables to detect certain types of commands and respond according to the given guidelines. 

Instead of employing a large number of customer service agents 24/7, a chatbot can save a noticeable figure of money. This finally has turned a worrisome prospect into a widely accepted functionality.

Forbes reported that 83% of customers are happy to shop online when they are assisted through the bots. It also predicts that by 2022, the use of bots technology is expected to save companies more than $8 billion.

Bot, or human?

The human-like attribute of Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant is another example of bots. This piece of a bot is programmed inside a metal box that is automated to respond in different ways to humans’ voice commands. 

Moreover, the capabilities or skills of these bots can be increased with more guidelines. For instance, you can add secondary bots to Your Amazon Alexa’s simple version. It can help you do things like ordering your groceries or giving you an update on the remaining amount in your account.

However, these chatbots are limited to perform according to the given guidelines. So, the inherent fragility of bots remains there. Software development companies and programmers can make software like a greeting response like “Hello” or “HI”, and through speech recognition, the bot responds based on the given instruction. However, chatbots usually do not have any critical thinking ability. And, for the most part, it cannot rely on its wits. Nevertheless, with more advancements in artificial intelligence, the improvising skills of bots are expanding. 

Bad Bots:

Since the use of technology has always been associated with both positive and negative activities, the use of bots cannot be avoided in criminal activities. With the rise in technology and an increased number of software development solutions, bots can be made to use for crimes.

For example, Twitter bots can automate social media feed. These automated programs can automatically post tweets, ‘like’ others’ posts, follow, and send messages to others on Twitter. Bots, thus, can also be used to spam harmful websites that are made to steal personal data and information. It may be used to post fake comments and reviews against a certain website to create a bad image among users/customers. 

In addition to this, social media bots can serve to defame and harass companies online by responding negatively to their posts. This may be intended to misrepresenting the general public’s view of a particular product or service.

Botnets and worse:

Spam messages and comments are a popular face of botnets. Botnets are popular among cybercriminals who used them dodgy pranks and thefts. These botnets are very cheap and can easily set up. The hackers do not even need the help of a software development company to set up these systems. Far worse, these bots can also be used to post political, religious, and sensitive content designed to affect the way people think and act. 

Automate your resistances:

Since we know that the threat of malicious bots is ever-increasing, we should take preventive measures for it. The bots with negative intentions can also be employed to automatically divert computing power, steal intellectual property, and add viruses that remain hidden until they can contribute to massive cyber-attacks.  

If your security services provider is not inspecting for bot attacks, you can be at the risk of both attacks. If you or your business has something worth stealing, you become an automatic target.  A software development companies in dallas that provides the solution for making bots can help you with getting a solution for your concerns in Cyber Security.