Scalpers are reportedly deploying web scrapers to make a quick buck while we’re deep in the memory and storage chip crisis. According to DataDome, a firm that protects websites and other online assets from automated attacks run through bots and AI, it has detected an operation trolling for the latest pricing data on memory modules and their components, sending queries every 6.5 seconds — that’s over 550 requests for each page, resulting in more than 50,000 requests per hour in total. The company says that it has blocked over 10 million requests that have been sent by the scalping bot, even using advanced techniques like cache-busting and ensuring that the request frequency stays under the alarm thresholds that companies use to protect their websites.
