botsthrough

Botsthrough is a term used in computing and cybersecurity to describe the ability of automated agents, or bots, to traverse a system boundary or access point, enabling actions without direct human interaction. It encompasses both legitimate automation—such as continuous integration pipelines, automated testing, data harvesting with consent, and chatbot platforms—and illicit activities like credential stuffing, web scraping, account takeover, and botnets that maintain presence across networks.

In practice, botsthrough occurs through a combination of software design and infrastructure choices. Bots may authenticate via tokens or cookies, pass through API gateways, and operate against web or application interfaces using headless browsers or proxies to conceal origin. They often employ device fingerprints and behavioral patterns to imitate human users or to blend with traffic, making detection challenging.

Defenses focus on identifying and mitigating unwanted traversal. Techniques include bot management platforms, rate limiting, challenge-responses, device fingerprinting, IP reputation, and anomaly detection. Privacy considerations, legality, and the ethics of automation are important when deploying or resisting bot traffic.

The term is informal and appears in industry literature, vendor documentation, and security research to describe the phenomenon of bots crossing controls designed to restrain automation. See also: Botnet, CAPTCHA, Bot management, Web scraping, API security, Automation.