The digital battlefield is unforgiving. Every login is a potential breach, every credential a potential goldmine for cybercriminals. This is the stark reality CISOs face in today’s hyperconnected world.
Paul Scanlon, VP of Product at DataDome, cuts to the heart of the matter: “We sit at the intersection of threat management and fraud prevention. Our goal is to focus on the intent behind every action coming to your site or endpoint.”
The Evolving Threat Landscape
Recent data paints a disturbing picture. “Social media has been the primary target of account takeovers,” Scanlon explains, “but what’s truly alarming is how banking attacks have dramatically increased.
“We’ve seen a 10% jump in financial sector breaches.”
The economics of attack are brutally simple. Modern attack tools like Open Bullet 2 and custom scripting have democratized cybercrime to a terrifying degree.
“Anyone can perform a very efficient attack,” Mathieu Dalmau, VP of Solutions & Services at DataDome notes. “Even someone with minimal technical skills can now launch sophisticated credential-stuffing campaigns.”
The Anatomy of an Attack
Imagine a digital assault that unfolds in mere milliseconds:
- Credential harvesting from social media
- Automated testing of stolen login information
- Bypassing traditional security measures
- Gaining unauthorized access to critical accounts
The price of entry? Shockingly low.
CAPTCHA solving services cost approximately 50 cents per 1,000 challenges. A teenager with a laptop can now wage war against enterprise security systems.
“The real commodity is Personal Identifiable Information,” Scanlon emphasizes. “Social security numbers, addresses, email credentials – these aren’t just data points. They’re keys to a kingdom of potential fraud.”
The Technical Deep Dive DataDome’s approach represents a quantum leap in defensive technology.
“We can determine the legitimacy of traffic in less than two milliseconds,” Dalmau explains. “We’re distinguishing between human and bot actions based on intent, not just origin.”
This isn’t traditional security. This is intent-based protection that operates at machine speed.
Key Defensive Strategies:
- Intent-based traffic analysis
- Real-time threat detection
- Multi-layered authentication
- Continuous credential monitoring
- Behavioral pattern recognition
The Human Element
Technology alone cannot win this war. CISOs must cultivate a culture of perpetual vigilance.
“Account takeovers are the initial gateway to broader fraud,” Dalmau warns. “We’re not just protecting an individual account – we’re preventing a potentially catastrophic breach.”
A Live Demonstration of Vulnerability During a recent simulation, DataDome demonstrated the terrifying efficiency of modern attack vectors.
Using Open Bullet 2 and custom scripting, attackers could:
- Test multiple credentials simultaneously
- Bypass traditional security checkpoints
- Gain unauthorized access within minutes
- Potentially change account passwords
The Psychological Warfare
Account takeovers are more than technical breaches. They represent a profound violation of trust between organizations and their customers. Each successful attack erodes confidence, damages reputation, and potentially destroys years of carefully built relationships. Call to Action for CISOs The battlefield has transformed. Traditional perimeter defenses are obsolete. Here’s your survival guide:
- Conduct comprehensive authentication mechanism audits
- Implement intent-based traffic analysis
- Develop continuous threat intelligence programs
- Invest in real-time detection technologies
- Create resilient incident response protocols
- Train teams to recognize emerging attack vectors
Intent-Driven AI Models for a New Internet Landscape
DataDome has further advanced its platform to address a rapidly evolving internet economy dominated by LLMs, AI crawlers, and autonomous agents. By expanding its intent-based models and launching real-time AI agent response policies, DataDome ensures businesses can categorize, control, and react to traffic in under 2 milliseconds.
“AI isn’t a feature – it’s the foundation of everything we do,” said Benjamin Fabre, co-founder and CEO of DataDome. “It’s what powers our ability to stop bots and fraud in real time, with precision and scale. But more than that, it’s what gives our customers the visibility and control they need to stay ahead as AI agents reshape the internet economy.”
The platform’s newest AI models are designed to detect intent – not just identity – allowing organizations to safely differentiate between helpful automation and malicious behavior. This means legitimate AI use cases like customer support agents or analytics bots can be permitted, while malicious credential stuffing bots are blocked instantly.
Among the newly deployed models, one has already blocked over 1.2 million malicious requests in just 48 hours by analyzing spikes in traffic, user agent anomalies, and header patterns. This real-time responsiveness is the backbone of DataDome’s multilayered engine, which now includes more than 85,000 customer-specific AI models tailored to unique traffic and behavioral threats.
From Blocking to Business: Monetizing AI Agent Interactions
Additionally, DataDome is launching a new partner program to give enterprises direct control over AI agent access. With partners like Skyfire, organizations can enforce licensing terms for LLMs, authenticate AI agent activity, and even monetize their interactions.
“AI agents are fast becoming the internet’s most active users, and they need infrastructure that moves as quickly as they do,” explained Amir Sarhangi, CEO and co-founder of Skyfire.
With these innovations, DataDome reaffirms its leadership in real-time fraud prevention and redefines the conversation around AI traffic management – from reactive blocking to proactive control.
The Future is Now
Account takeovers aren’t a distant threat – they’re a present reality.
Attackers are organized, motivated, and increasingly sophisticated – using AI tools to accelerate their attacks.
Your defense must be equally dynamic. “Understanding the threat is the first step to neutralizing it,” Dalmau concludes. “The next step? Decisive, intelligent action.”
The question isn’t if they’ll come knocking. The question is: Will you be ready when they do?
Visit https://datadome.co/ for more information.
About the Author
Pete Green is the CISO / CTO of Anvil Works, a ProCloud SaaS company. With over 25 years of experience in information technology and cybersecurity, Pete is a seasoned and accomplished security practitioner.
Throughout his career, he has held a wide range of technical and leadership roles, including LAN/WLAN Engineer, Threat Analyst, Security Project Manager, Security Architect, Cloud Security Architect, Principal Security Consultant, Director of IT, CTO, CEO, Virtual CISO, and CISO.
Pete has supported clients across numerous industries, including federal, state, and local government, as well as financial services, healthcare, food services, manufacturing, technology, transportation, and hospitality.
He holds a Master of Computer Information Systems in Information Security from Boston University, which is recognized as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance / Cyber Defense (CAE IA/CD) by the NSA and DHS. He also holds a Master of Business Administration in Informatics.
