The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management Software, Q3 2024: Findings and DataDome’s Recognition As A Leader

Today, Forrester released its report for Bot Management Software, a report aimed at providing a non-biased assessment of the bot security landscape and bot mitigation vendors. It is also a big day for us at DataDome as we celebrate being recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management Software, Q3 2024—having received the top score among all 11 vendors in the current offering category.

What is The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management Software Report?

Forrester is one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, and its Forrester Wave™ reports are designed to assess the capabilities of the top players in various industries. Forrester follows their own rigorous methodology, looking at everything from product and strategy, live demos & briefings, and customer reference surveys & interviews. They then use those inputs—with the analyst’s experience and expertise in the marketplace—to evaluate and score vendors.

Findings from The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management Software, Q3 2024

Beyond assessing vendors, the report also provides an assessment of customer’s most pressing needs and challenges. Here are some of the findings from the report:

1. The Growing Threat of Sophisticated Bots & Evolving Attack Techniques

Bad bots have become more sophisticated and accessible, posing a significant threat. These bots perform credential stuffing attacks, scraping, and vulnerability scanning, making them central to malicious activities. Bot management vendors must continually update their defenses to stay ahead of attackers who share evasion techniques on underground forums.

Fraudsters play a continuous game of cat-and-mouse to avoid bot detection, using advanced evasion techniques such as:

• Distributed IP addresses
• Residential proxies
• Open-source automation suites
• Headless Chrome
• Bots-as-a-service (BaaS)

2. AI Advancements & The Importance of Superior Detection

AI advancements make it easier and faster for attackers to improve their tactics. As cybersecurity threats evolve, the Forrester report states, “Vendors and their customers must keep their guard up and watch out for new attack techniques, new detection evasions, and new bot targets while also managing the load from any good bots.”

Forrester emphasizes the importance of detection accuracy and DataDome received the highest possible score in the Detection Models criterion, which, for us, highlights DataDome’s:

• Customization options for detection models
• Customer ability to self-service and customize models
• Clear explanations tailored to non-technical audiences
• Validation from reference customers on detection capabilities

DataDome leverages an AI-powered detection engine with multi-layered ML models to analyze every request in real-time. Processing over 5 trillion signals daily, DataDome’s collective threat information is reflected in its ML models, scaled across all protected endpoints immediately. DataDome offers:

• Hundreds of out-of-the-box general ML models
• Customizable detection frameworks for specific customer, app, and use case protection
• Real-time updates from a dedicated threat research team

This ensures that customers receive continuous protection against evolving bot threats.

3. Growing Need to Support Multiple Use Cases & Stakeholders

Managing bot protection across numerous end-points is complex. Security teams must address various threats, use cases, and business requirements.

The Forrester report recommends that organizations “look for solutions that provide use-case-specific response policies, out-of-the-box general and use-case-specific dashboards that are easy to customize and share, and detailed analysis and explainability about bot attack approaches and goals. Some vendors now offer ROI reports that will help security pros articulate the solution’s value to their leadership teams.”

DataDome received a 5/5 score, which Forrester defines as “superior,” in the management UI criterion, as well as the out-of-the-box response policy, customizable response policy configuration, and out-of-the-box reports and dashboards criteria.

Our intuitive dashboard and reporting systems provide clear insights without a steep learning curve. The Forrester report states that “DataDome stands out for an easy-to-use management interface that seamlessly enables bulk addition of applications and discovers new applications that need protection. The product has a wide range of out-of-the-box integrations with many SIEM tools and with tools like Google Analytics, Adobe, and Marketo.”

4. Bot Management Now Part of Larger Security Strategy

Security tooling is moving toward consolidation from point products to platforms. Bot management is evolving as fraudsters use bots for various purposes, from scraping and account takeovers to inventory and payment fraud.

Currently, cybersecurity and fraud teams often operate in silos with different problems, metrics, toolsets, and leadership. However, attackers use bots throughout the customer journey, and many fraud products fail to address customers’ business logic.

These teams are beginning to merge under single security leaders, making fraud a cybersecurity concern. Due to a lack of unified tooling, teams rely on individual point products, leading to increased costs, complexity, and vulnerability risks.

Forrester references this shift in the report:

• “Security leaders must consider bots in the context of broader application and fraud attacks. Look for vendors that either offer adjacent products in the fraud or AppSec spaces or simplify deployments and integrations to support existing investments in those areas.”
• “…help customers incorporate bot management insights across the business and increase the product’s ROI.”

DataDome’s Cyberfraud Protection Platform meets this need with several bot and fraud products under one roof. Earlier this year, DataDome introduced Ad Protect to combat click fraud for advertisers and Account Protect to block account takeovers and fake account creation with granular account- and user- views and policies.

And our ambition is to provide even more value to our customers. We feel Forrester recognized this point, noting in the report that, “DataDome is looking to expand its historic bot management specialist position to a broader antifraud story. In early 2024, the firm launched Account Protect and Ad Protect, and its strategy includes the ambitious goal of launching one new product per quarter.”

5. The Importance of Strong Partners & Integrations

Customers value vendors with strong partner ecosystems for better business outcomes. DataDome received a 5/5 score, which Forrester defines as “superior,” in the partner ecosystem criterion, stating, “Partnerships are critical to DataDome’s go-to-market approach — Amazon Web Services has granted DataDome the AWS Security Competency and Retail Software Competency designations, and Adobe Commerce has brought in DataDome as a Gold Technology Partner.”

DataDome has invested significantly in its partner ecosystem, including partnerships with AWS, Adobe, Fastly, and 50+ other integrations. These partners enhance our solutions and simplify deployment and management for customers.

DataDome Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management Software, Q3 2024

As stated in the report, “Customers looking for a strong all-around bot solution that excels in ease of use should add DataDome to their shortlist.”

Being recognized as a Leader by Forrester drives us to push the boundaries in bot detection and fraud prevention. For the enterprises we protect, this means access to one of the most advanced, reliable, and user-friendly bot management solutions available today.

Download your copy of the report here.