Host-Level Bot Detection in Distributed Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Web-based applications face challenges in detecting and mitigating bot attacks, particularly in distributed systems where individual computing devices lack awareness of requests processed by other devices, leading to difficulties in identifying and countering bot attacks without incurring high communication overhead or generating false positives.
Innovation Solution
Implementing host-level bot detection, where each computing device independently monitors request frequencies using sliding windows and sampling techniques to identify potential bot attacks and throttle suspicious requests, thereby reducing the need for inter-device communication and minimizing false positives.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If global information sharing is implemented across distributed computing devices to detect bot attacks, then detection accuracy is improved, but communication overhead and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the distributed system into independent host-level detection units, where each computing device autonomously monitors its own request patterns without requiring global coordination. This segmentation eliminates communication overhead while maintaining detection capability at the individual host level through local statistical analysis of request frequencies and patterns.
2Reliability
If request monitoring is performed at global system level, then bot attack identification is improved, but computational overhead and false positives increase
Solution Approach 1:
Each computing device independently performs bot detection by monitoring its own incoming request patterns, eliminating the need for centralized computational resources. The host-level detector uses local statistical methods to analyze request frequencies and identify bot behavior, reducing overall system computational overhead while maintaining reliable detection through autonomous self-monitoring.
3Reliability
If inter-device communication is increased to share bot detection information, then detection reliability is improved, but system performance and response time deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary bot detection at the host level before requests are distributed across the system. Each computing device pre-analyzes incoming request patterns and identifies potential bot attacks locally, enabling immediate response without waiting for inter-device communication or centralized analysis, thus maintaining high system response time while ensuring reliable detection.
Data Source
AI summary
A system comprises a plurality of computing devices. Requests received by the system are distributed at random among the computing devices. A computing device, in response to receiving a request, stores a record of utilization of the computing device by a source of the request. The computing device determines to throttle requests from the source based, at least in part, on the utilization of the computing device by the source within the time period.