Case Study: Ulta Beauty Blocks API Enumeration Attacks and Saves Costs with Cequence Security

Ulta Beauty blocks API attacks and saves $80,000 with Cequence Security

Ulta Beauty faced a significant challenge from a persistent, high-volume API-based enumeration attack that targeted its third-party local-inventory search API. The attack, which scraped inventory data across thousands of zip codes and products, was difficult to block due to its use of residential proxy IPs. Ulta Beauty partnered with Cequence Security to mitigate this threat.

Cequence Security implemented policies to block the attack by identifying anomalous behaviors like direct-to-API requests, volumetric thresholds, outdated browsers, and single cookie generation. This solution successfully blocked 85.9 million malicious requests, saving Ulta Beauty $80,000 in infrastructure and loss prevention costs. The efforts by Cequence Security also eliminated the increased infrastructure burden on the third-party API vendor.

Ulta Beauty