The rising volume of bot traffic on the web is driving companies to adopt new tools for securing their websites. PerimeterX Inc., a threat prevention provider based out of San Mateo, California, said today it has nabbed $23 million in funding from a consortium led by Canaan Ventures to capitalize on the trend.

The startup offers a cloud-based service that uses machine learning to fight malicious traffic. Bot Defender can be installed by embedding a JavaScript snippet into the site or web application that a company wishes to protect. Once the setup is complete, PerimeterX will start collecting detailed security data about each visitor that includes most everything from click frequency to how media content is rendered in their browser.

The aggregated information is correlated with operational metrics about the underlying processes to create a risk score that is refreshed every time something changes. According to PerimeterX, this approach enables its service to identify not only run-of-the-mill malicious traffic but also bots that actively try to avoid detection. The startup promises to spot instances when attackers run a hacking tool inside a real browser session as an extension.

Bot Defender automatically takes action when suspicious activity is detected. Depending on how high users’ risk scores are, the service will either ask them to verify that they’re human or simply block access. 

PerimeterX said Bot Defender’s capabilities can come handy in a range of situations. The service is useful for fending off brute force attacks, attempts to generate fake accounts and various forms of marketing fraud designed to exploit a company’s online ads. It also helps defend against tamer bots such as the web scrapers employed in some parts of the e-commerce industry to track competitors’ prices. 

PerimeterX will use today’s funding to add yet more use cases to the mix and scale up its international presence. The startup can expect a good amount of competition from the other players in bot mitigation, particularly Distil Networks Inc. It also uses machine learning to identify malicious web traffic and has raised $54 million from investors to date.

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