Graphics Card Sellers Increasingly Targeted by Scalper Bots

Graphics Card Sellers Increasingly Targeted by Scalper Bots

Automated bots are notorious for causing annoyance. One of the most well-known nefarious activities involves setting up a bot to buy tickets or services ahead of regular buyers and then reselling them on the market with a significant markup.

Online reselling is a huge business, and when many lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 epidemic, they saw the opportunity in similar bot operations.

Others just engage in this business to benefit from resales of high-demand products. One gang, for example, claimed to have obtained 3,500 PlayStation 5 consoles in the United Kingdom and Europe, resulting in the next-gen gaming system’s near-instantaneous sell-out.

There’s a global scarcity of chips, which the epidemic and natural catastrophes have exacerbated. Graphics cards, for example, are in great demand from tech suppliers, gamers, and cryptocurrency miners. And, scalper bots have emerged to meet this need.

Recently, a bot mitigation platform Netacea released its Top Five Scalper Bots Quarterly Index, a monitoring report that highlights the hottest goods that scalper bots most frequently target.

From April  till June 2021, the company revealed that the trendiest product was the $110 Air Jordan Retro 1 High OG sneakers, which were once scalped and resold for more than seven times their original price tag.

The PS5 was the second most desired item. In under six hours, one bot detected by Netacea generated “one million purchase attempts.”

Graphics cards designed for gaming came in third place. The NVIDIA RTX 3000 series was the most popular product scalpers sought to obtain.

Another trendy item, the Yeezy Boost 700 MNVN shoes, came in fourth, and chips made a reappearance in fifth, with graphics cards promoted for bitcoin mining.

In addition to supply chain concerns compounding the difficulties of the previous two years, merchants are increasingly concerned about bots purchasing their most popular products before consumers. This kind of practice has a detrimental influence on pricing and a brand’s reputation.

Image: www.sitepronews.com

 

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CIM Team

CIM Team

CyberIntelMag is the trusted authority in cybersecurity, comprised of leading industry experts for over 20 years, dedicated to serving cybersecurity professionals. Our goal is to provide a one-stop shop for knowledge and insight needed to navigate throughout today’s emerging cybersecurity landscape through in-depth coverage of breaking news, tutorials, product reviews, videos and industry influencers.

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