Cyber Daily Report

Michael Chukwube--securityboulevard.com
published date: 2025-10-22 00:00:00 UTC

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Cyberattackers use automated bots to scrape websites and commit fraud. Data scraping and digital fraud can be very costly: One study estimates black hat scraping costs businesses over <a href="https://scrapingant.com/blog/black-hat-web-scraping#:~:text=The%20economic%20consequences%20of%20black,competitive%20disadvantages%2C%20and%20mitigation%20expenses" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$100 billion</a> globally each year and many companies report significant revenue loss (for example <a href="https://www.kasada.io/use-cases/content-scraping/#:~:text=38,is%20a%20top%20automated%20threat">54%</a> lost an average of 6% of sales) due to scrapers. These threats highlight the need for data scraping prevention and fraud prevention techniques. Proxy servers are a key layer of defense. As intermediaries between internet clients and backend servers, proxies hide origin IPs and inspect all incoming traffic at a central point. This allows organisations to block malicious bots and fraudsters while letting legitimate users through. <div class="code-block code-block-13" style="margin: 8px 0; clear: both;"> <style> .ai-rotate {position: relative;} .ai-rotate-hidden {visibility: hidden;} .ai-rotate-hidden-2 {position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;} .ai-list-data, .ai-ip-data, .ai-filter-check, .ai-fallback, .ai-list-block, .ai-list-block-ip, .ai-list-block-filter {visibility: hidden; position: absolute; width: 50%; height: 1px; top: -1000px; z-index: -9999; margin: 0px!important;} .ai-list-data, .ai-ip-data, .ai-filter-check, .ai-fallback {min-width: 1px;} </style> <div class="ai-rotate ai-unprocessed ai-timed-rotation ai-13-1" data-info="WyIxMy0xIiwxXQ==" style="position: relative;"> <div class="ai-rotate-option" style="visibility: hidden;" data-index="1" data-name="U2hvcnQ=" data-time="MTA="> <div class="custom-ad"> <div style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.techstrongevents.com/cruisecon-virtual-west-2025/home?ref=in-article-ad-2&utm_source=sb&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=in-article-ad-2" target="_blank"><img src="https://securityboulevard.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Banner-770x330-social-1.png" alt="Cruise Con 2025"></a></div> <div class="clear-custom-ad"></div> </div></div> </div> </div><h3 aria-level="2">Data Scraping and Online Fraud: The Threat Landscape </h3>Web data scraping and online fraud are often linked. Automated scraping tools (bots or crawlers) harvest prices, product details, and personal information without permission. Scraped data is often used for identity theft and scams: As one <a href="https://www.kasada.io/use-cases/content-scraping/#:~:text=Image%20Fraud%20%26%20Identity%20Theft,theft%20or%20other%20fraudulent%20activities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> says, “web scraping can be used to collect personal information… for identity theft or other fraudulent activities”. Competitors may even use bots to undercut pricing or steal proprietary data – for example, Kasada warns that scraping can let rivals “get an unfair advantage by undercutting pricing and stealing customer data”. Because of these risks (revenue loss, brand damage, legal issues), data scraping prevention is a top priority. Organisations must defend against bots that not only steal content but also fuel phishing, social engineering, and other fraud schemes. <h3 aria-level="2">Proxy Servers in Security Architecture </h3><a href="https://securityboulevard.com/2022/08/why-are-proxy-servers-important-for-cybersecurity-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A proxy server is a gateway between users and web servers</a>. A <a href="https://www.zscaler.com/resources/security-terms-glossary/what-is-reverse-proxy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reverse proxy</a> “sits in front of one or more web servers to intercept and inspect incoming client requests”. To the client, the proxy appears as the actual server, so the real server’s IP stays hidden. This hiding improves security: As one <a href="https://substack.thewebscraping.club/p/reverse-proxies-and-webscraping" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expert</a> says, reverse proxies “improve security, shielding web servers from direct exposure to the Internet”. In practice, all user traffic goes through the proxy, creating a single point of failure. By directing traffic through this choke point, organizations create a point where security policies can be enforced. The proxy can then apply caching, load balancing, or security rules (such as firewalls and zero-trust authentication) before forwarding requests. In short, the proxy layer enforces network controls and is the foundation of any proxy security strategy. <h3 aria-level="2">Using Proxies for Data Scraping Prevention </h3>Proxies are perfect for anti-bot measures and data scraping prevention. They inspect each request and apply security logic before traffic hits the origin. As <a href="https://startupgrowthguide.com/how-proxies-provide-an-extra-layer-of-protection-against-ddos-attacks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StartUp Growth Guide</a> says, “a proxy can inspect, filter, or transform client requests before they hit the protected servers”. In other words, proxies do early traffic inspection on every incoming connection. Security teams configure proxy rules (or deploy a Web Application Firewall at the proxy) to block scraper signatures. For example, many companies put a WAF on the proxy to inspect HTTP requests. These WAFs can drop or challenge automated requests: the proxy can be configured to drop or challenge suspicious connections (e.g., automated flood requests) while letting normal users through. Common prevention measures at the proxy are IP blacklisting, rate limiting, geo-blocking and CAPTCHA challenges. Because all clients must go through this gateway, the proxy becomes the first line of defense, quickly filtering out known bots and automated crawlers before they hit the backend servers. Centralized filtering is a key component of any data scraping prevention strategy. <h3 aria-level="2">Caching and Traffic Shaping </h3>Beyond filtering, proxies also cache and distribute load. A reverse proxy or CDN can cache static content (pages, images, etc.) at the edge. If a bot requests the same data repeatedly, the proxy can serve the cached copy instead of hitting the origin. This offloads traffic spikes caused by scrapers. In effect, legitimate users get content from cache even under heavy load. Large-scale reverse-proxy/CDN networks (often using Anycast) distribute incoming traffic globally, so abusive load is spread across many nodes. This scrubbing/shock-absorbing effect is similar to DDoS defense. In summary, caching and traffic shaping at the proxy layer help with both scraping and other high-volume attacks by smoothing out spikes and preserving backend performance. <h3 aria-level="2">Proxy Security Best Practices </h3>To be effective, proxies themselves must be secure. Security architects say that proxy servers themselves must be secure since proxies are exposed and handle all incoming traffic. Best practices for proxy security include strict access controls, regular patching, and network segmentation. For example, admins often terminate SSL/TLS at the proxy (so encrypted traffic is inspected) and keep management ports off the public interface. Proxies should run minimal software and log activity for anomalies. In a zero-trust design, proxies form a hardened perimeter: As <a href="https://www.zscaler.com/zpedia/what-is-a-proxy-server" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zscaler</a> says, “adding proxies in front of apps means a strict level of authentication between external requests and your systems,” which translates to “robust proxy server security” with firewalls and monitoring. In short, a secure configuration of the proxy is key because a compromised proxy would expose the entire back-end. A strong proxy security ensures the proxy layer reinforces defense rather than introduces new weaknesses. <h3 aria-level="2">Proxies in Fraud Prevention Strategies </h3>Proxies also play a role in broader fraud prevention techniques. Cybercriminals use anonymizing proxies or VPNs to mask their location when committing fraud. So detecting proxy usage is a key fraud detection step. Industry reports say “Proxies are used in <a href="https://www.idenfy.com/proxy-detection-ip-insight/#:~:text=Industry%20Leading%20IP%20Address%20Verification" target="_blank" rel="noopener">97%</a> of cyber fraud cases”. In practice, fraud prevention solutions check the IP address of each transaction or login; if it comes from a known proxy/VPN provider or is from an unlikely geography, that user is flagged for extra scrutiny. By incorporating this IP intelligence into real-time risk scoring, you can automatically trigger multi-factor checks or block orders. In effect, proxy detection becomes one layer of a multi-layered defense. Combined with behavior analytics and authentication checks, it helps to distinguish genuine customers from fraudsters. Modern fraud prevention techniques, therefore, include proxy and VPN detection as standard practice. <h3 aria-level="2">Anti-Scraping Proxy Tools and Services </h3>Many security products are designed to target scraping and bot traffic using proxy technology. Large CDNs, bot-management services and WAF solutions advertise integrated anti-scraping proxy tools that automate defenses. These tools sit at the proxy layer and use machine learning or device fingerprinting to detect humans vs bots. For example, a managed service might dynamically present CAPTCHA or JavaScript challenges to suspicious clients at the proxy, while letting real users pass silently. Because these anti-scraping proxy tools sit in front of the site, they can block known bad IP ranges or detect anomalies in request patterns instantly. Vendors often claim to be able to “sniff out malicious activity” in real time on the proxy layer. In practice, deploying a proxy-based anti-bot solution means that scraping is detected and neutralized automatically at the edge of the network. The proxy becomes an automated enforcement point for all of your anti-scraping and fraud rules. <h3 aria-level="2">Conclusion </h3>Proxies are a powerful tool in the fight against web scraping and fraud. Sitting between users and servers, proxies hide origin addresses, filter out bad traffic and are a central point of enforcement for security policies. This makes them perfect for data scraping prevention – they can throttle bots, enforce rate limits and challenge suspicious requests before the scraper ever hits the origin. Proxies also help with fraud prevention – by checking IP reputations and integrating with authentication flows, they can spot proxy-aided fraud attempts. Of course, proxies need to be secured themselves; diligent proxy security (firewalls, patching, monitoring) is required so this layer remains trusted. When used as part of a layered security strategy (along with CAPTCHA, device checks, behavior analytics etc), proxies become a “shock absorber” against automated attacks. 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