Amazon WAF Bot Control rule group - Amazon WAF, Amazon Firewall Manager, and Amazon Shield Advanced
Bot Control rules listing
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Amazon WAF Bot Control rule group

VendorName: AWS, Name: AWSManagedRulesBotControlRuleSet, WCU: 50

The Bot Control managed rule group provides rules that manage requests from bots. Bots can consume excess resources, skew business metrics, cause downtime, and perform malicious activities.

Protection levels

The Bot Control managed rule group provides two levels of protection that you can choose from:

  • Common – Detects a variety of self-identifying bots, such as web scraping frameworks, search engines, and automated browsers. Bot Control protections at this level identify common bots using traditional bot detection techniques, such as static request data analysis. The rules label traffic from these bots and block the ones that they cannot verify.

  • Targeted – Includes the common-level protections and adds targeted detection for sophisticated bots that do not self identify. Targeted protections mitigate bot activity using a combination of rate limiting and CAPTCHA and background browser challenges.

    • TGT_ – Rules that provide targeted protection have names that begin with TGT_. All targeted protections use detection techniques such as browser interrogation, fingerprinting, and behavior heuristics to identify bad bot traffic.

    • TGT_ML_ – Targeted protection rules that use machine learning have names that begin with TGT_ML_. These rules use automated, machine-learning analysis of website traffic statistics to detect anomalous behavior indicative of distributed, coordinated bot activity. Amazon WAF analyzes statistics about your website traffic such as timestamps, browser characteristics, and previous URL visited, to improve the Bot Control machine learning model. Machine learning capabilities are enabled by default, but you can disable them in your rule group configuration. When machine learning is disabled, Amazon WAF does not evaluate these rules.

The targeted protection level and the Amazon WAF rate-based rule statement both provide rate limiting. For a comparison of the two options, see Options for rate limiting in rate-based rules and targeted Bot Control rules.

Using this rule group

This rule group is part of the intelligent threat mitigation protections in Amazon WAF. For information, see Amazon WAF intelligent threat mitigation.

Note

You are charged additional fees when you use this managed rule group. For more information, see Amazon WAF Pricing.

To keep your costs down and to be sure you're managing your web traffic as you want, use this rule group in accordance with the guidance at Best practices for intelligent threat mitigation.

The Bot Control rule group doesn't provide SNS update notifications.

Token labels

This rule group uses Amazon WAF token management to inspect and label web requests according to the status of their Amazon WAF tokens. Amazon WAF uses tokens for client session tracking and verification.

Amazon WAF applies one of the following labels when it inspects a web request's token and challenge timestamp. Amazon WAF doesn't add labeling about the status of the CAPTCHA timestamp.

  • awswaf:managed:token:accepted – The request token is present and has an unexpired challenge timestamp.

  • awswaf:managed:token:rejected – The request token is present but is either corrupt or has an expired challenge timestamp.

  • awswaf:managed:token:absent – The request doesn't have a token.

For more information, see Amazon WAF web request tokens.

Bot Control labels

The Bot Control managed rule group generates labels with the namespace prefix awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control: followed by the custom namespace and label name. The rule group might add more than one label to a request.

Each label reflects the Bot Control rule findings:

  • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot: – Information about the bot associated with the request.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:name:<name> – The bot name, if one is available, for example, the custom namespaces bot:name:slurp, bot:name:googlebot, and bot:name:pocket_parser.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:<category> – The category of bot, as defined by Amazon WAF, for example, bot:category:search_engine and bot:category:content_fetcher.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:organization:<organization> – The bot's publisher, for example, bot:organization:google.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified – Used to indicate a bot that identifies itself and that Bot Control has been able to verify. This is used for common desirable bots, and can be useful when combined with category labels like bot:category:search_engine or name labels like bot:name:googlebot.

      Note

      Bot Control uses the IP address from the web request origin to help determine whether a bot is verified. You can’t configure it to use the Amazon WAF forwarded IP configuration, to inspect a different IP address source. If you have verified bots that route through a proxy or load balancer, you can add a rule that runs before the Bot Control rule group to help with this. Configure your new rule to use the forwarded IP address and explicitly allow requests from the verified bots. For information about using forwarded IP addresses, see Forwarded IP address.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:user_triggered:verified – Used to indicate a bot that is similar to a verified bot, but that might be directly invoked by end users. This category of bot is treated by the Bot Control rules like an unverified bot.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:developer_platform:verified – Used to indicate a bot that is similar to a verified bot, but that is used by developer platforms for scripting, for example Google Apps Script. This category of bot is treated by the Bot Control rules like an unverified bot.

    • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:unverified – Used to indicate a bot that identifies itself, so it can be named and categorized, but that doesn't publish information that can be used to independently verify its identify. These types of bot signatures can be falsified, and so are treated as unverified.

  • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:signal:<signal-details> – Used for attributes of the request that are indicative of bots that are not more commonly used or verified.

  • awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:<additional-details> – Used by the Bot Control targeted protections.

You can retrieve all labels for a rule group through the API by calling DescribeManagedRuleGroup. The labels are listed in the AvailableLabels property in the response.

The Bot Control managed rule group applies labels to a set of verifiable bots that are commonly allowed. The rule group doesn't block these verified bots and doesn't apply any signal: labels. If you want, you can block them, or a subset of them by writing a custom rule that uses the labels applied by the Bot Control managed rule group. For more information about this and examples, see Amazon WAF Bot Control.

Bot Control rules listing

The following table lists the Bot Control rules.

Note

The information that we publish for the rules in the Amazon Managed Rules rule groups is intended to provide you with enough information to use the rules while not providing information that bad actors could use to circumvent the rules. If you need more information than you find in this documentation, contact the Amazon Web Services Support Center.

Rule name Description
CategoryAdvertising

Inspects for bots that are used for advertising purposes.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:advertising

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryArchiver

Inspects for bots that are used for archiving purposes.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:archiver

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryContentFetcher

Inspects for bots that are fetching content on behalf of a user.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:content_fetcher

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryEmailClient

Inspects for email clients.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:email_client

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryHttpLibrary

Inspects for HTTP libraries that are used by bots.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:http_library

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryLinkChecker

Inspects for bots that check for broken links.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:link_checker

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryMiscellaneous

Inspects for miscellaneous bots.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:miscellaneous

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryMonitoring

Inspects for bots that are used for monitoring purposes.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:monitoring

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryScrapingFramework

Inspects for web scraping frameworks.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:scraping_framework

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategorySearchEngine

Inspects for search engine bots.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:search_engine

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategorySecurity

Inspects for security-related bots.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:security

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategorySeo

Inspects for bots that are used for search engine optimization.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:seo

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategorySocialMedia

Inspects for bots that are used by social media platforms to provide content summaries.

Rule action, applied only to unverified bots: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:social_media

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

CategoryAI

Inspects for artificial intelligence (AI) bots.

Rule action: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:category:ai

SignalAutomatedBrowser

Inspects the request's token for indicators that the client browser might be automated. For more information, see Token characteristics.

Rule action: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:signal:automated_browser
SignalKnownBotDataCenter

Inspects for data centers that are typically used by bots.

Rule action: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:signal:known_bot_data_center
SignalNonBrowserUserAgent

Inspects for user agent strings that don't seem to be from a web browser.

Rule action: Block

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:signal:non_browser_user_agent
TGT_VolumetricIpTokenAbsent

Inspects for 5 or more requests from a client in the last 5 minutes that don't include a valid challenge token. For information about tokens, see Amazon WAF web request tokens.

Note

The threshold that this rule applies can vary slightly due to latency.

This rule handles missing tokens differently from the token labeling: awswaf:managed:token:absent. The token labeling labels individual requests that don't have a token. This rule maintains a count for each client session of requests that are missing their token and it matches against clients that go over the limit. It's possible for this rule to match on a request that has a token if requests from the same client have recently been missing tokens.

Rule action, applied only to clients that are not verified bots: Challenge

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:volumetric:ip:token_absent

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

This rule is different from the token labeling: awswaf:managed:token:absent, which just labels individual requests that don't have a token. This rule maintains a count for each client session of requests that are missing their token and it takes action against unverified bots that go over the limit.

TGT_VolumetricSession

Inspects for an abnormally high number of requests from a client session in any 5 minute window. The evaluation is based on a comparison to standard volumetric baselines that Amazon WAF maintains using historic traffic patterns.

This inspection only applies when the web request has a token. Tokens are added to requests by the application integration SDKs and by the rule actions CAPTCHA and Challenge. For more information, see Amazon WAF web request tokens.

Note

This rule can take 5 minutes to go into effect after you enable it. Bot Control identifies anomalous behavior in your web traffic by comparing the current traffic to traffic baselines that Amazon WAF computes.

Rule action, applied only to clients that are not verified bots: CAPTCHA

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:volumetric:session:high

The rule group applies the following labels to medium volume and lower volume requests that are above a minimum threshold. For these levels, the rule takes no action, regardless of whether the client is verified: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:volumetric:session:medium and awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:volumetric:session:low.

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

TGT_SignalAutomatedBrowser

Inspects the request's token for indicators that the client browser might be automated. For more information, see Token characteristics.

This inspection only applies when the web request has a token. Tokens are added to requests by the application integration SDKs and by the rule actions CAPTCHA and Challenge. For more information, see Amazon WAF web request tokens.

Rule action, applied only to clients that are not verified bots: CAPTCHA

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:signal:automated_browser

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

TGT_SignalBrowserInconsistency

Inspects for inconsistent browser interrogation data. For more information, see Token characteristics.

This inspection only applies when the web request has a token. Tokens are added to requests by the application integration SDKs and by the rule actions CAPTCHA and Challenge. For more information, see Amazon WAF web request tokens.

Rule action, applied only to clients that are not verified bots: CAPTCHA

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:signal:browser_inconsistency

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.

TGT_TokenReuseIp

Inspects for the use of a single token among more than 5 distinct IP addresses.

Note

The thresholds that this rule applies can vary slightly due to latency. A few requests might make it through beyond the limit before the rule action is applied.

Rule action: Count

Label: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:volumetric:session:token_reuse:ip
TGT_ML_CoordinatedActivityMedium and TGT_ML_CoordinatedActivityHigh

Inspect for anomalous behavior consistent with distributed, coordinated bot activity. The rule levels indicate the level of confidence that a group of requests are participants in a coordinated attack.

Note

These rules only run if the rule group is configured to use machine learning (ML). For information about configuring this choice, see Adding the Amazon WAF Bot Control managed rule group to your web ACL.

Amazon WAF performs this inspection through machine learning analysis of website traffic statistics. Amazon WAF analyzes web traffic every few minutes and optimizes the analysis for the detection of low intensity, long-duration bots that are distributed across many IP addresses.

These rules might match on a very small number of requests before determining that a coordinated attack is not underway. So if you see just a match or two, the results might be false positives. If you see a lot of matches coming out of these rules however, then you're probably experiencing a coordinated attack.

Note

These rules can take up to 24 hours to go into effect after you enable the Bot Control targeted rules with the ML option. Bot Control identifies anomalous behavior in your web traffic by comparing the current traffic to traffic baselines that Amazon WAF has computed. Amazon WAF only computes the baselines while you're using the Bot Control targeted rules with the ML option, and it can take up to 24 hours to establish meaningful baselines.

Rule actions, applied only to clients that are not verified bots:

  • Medium: Count

  • High: Count

Labels: awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:coordinated_activity:medium and awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:targeted:aggregate:coordinated_activity:high

For verified bots, the rule group takes no action, but it adds the rule labeling plus the label awswaf:managed:aws:bot-control:bot:verified.