According to GlobalData’s company profile on Akamai Technologies, Automation system authentication was a key innovation area identified from patents. Akamai Technologies's grant share as of September 2023 was 64%. Grant share is based on the ratio of number of grants to total number of patents.

Bot detection method in a content delivery network

A recently granted patent (Publication Number: US11777955B2) describes a method and apparatus for bot detection in a content delivery network (CDN) comprising a distributed set of edge servers. The method involves collecting transaction data as clients interact with the edge servers and mining this data against a set of primitive or compound feature sets to generate a database. The database consists of data structures that associate feature values with their relative percentage occurrence across the collected transaction data. This database is then provided to a given edge server.

When a new transaction request is received at the given edge server from a client, the method involves comparing the primitive or compound feature set data derived from the request against the database. Based on this comparison, the client associated with the new transaction request is characterized as a bot if the feature set is not found in the database or if the frequency of occurrence associated with additional transactions from the client is inconsistent with the relative percentages in the database.

The primitive feature set used in the method includes features such as canvas fingerprint, browser parameters, device size, user agent, TLS fingerprint, request headers, and additional features, either individually or in combination. The transaction data can be mined periodically or upon a given occurrence, and it can be collected on a time-limited, geo-limited, network-limited, edge server region-limited basis, or a combination thereof.

The apparatus described in the patent includes a processor and computer memory holding computer program instructions. These instructions enable the apparatus to receive a request from a client, compare the feature set data against a database, and characterize the client as a bot if necessary. Mitigation actions can then be taken with respect to the request.

The patent also covers an article comprising program media holding machine-readable code that can be executed by one or more processors. This code enables the collection and mining of transaction data, comparison with a database, and characterization of clients as bots based on the comparison.

Overall, this patent presents a method and apparatus for bot detection in a CDN that utilizes transaction data and feature sets to identify and mitigate bot activity.

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