After 25 years, CAPTCHAs are still quite popular, with some of the largest online companies in the world using them. In fact, 36% of the Internet’s top 10,000 sites have a CAPTCHA.
Since CAPTCHAs were originally invented as a way for companies to differentiate between humans and bots, most bot detection technology relies on CAPTCHAs or visual challenges in some way.
Ironically, bots and AI can now solve all types of CAPTCHAs (including Google reCAPTCHA and hCAPTCHA) more easily and faster than humans can. The term “solve” here essentially means hack.
Attackers don’t just bypass CAPTCHAs because they are a nuisance. When they use automation to commit fraud, bypassing CAPTCHAs at scale becomes a necessary evil. Bad actors will evade CAPTCHAs to launch cyber attacks with bots that appear human, creating fake accounts at scale and conducting toll fraud, which can cost brands millions of dollars that cut into their profit margins.
Before we talk about CAPTCHA Alternatives, let's take a step back to discuss how CAPTCHAs got their start.
The History of CAPTCHAs
When Google acquired reCAPTCHA in 2009, reCAPTCHA’s founder Luis von Ahn (fun fact: he's also the founder of Duolingo) said, “I’m certain it will happen at some point that computers are as good at this as humans.” At the time, he predicted that humans could probably beat the machines for another 10 years. “At that point, we’ll have to figure something else out.”
Turns out, his prediction was spot on. We’ve reached the point where bots are definitively better at solving CAPTCHAs than humans.
Here’s a timeline overview of the history of CAPTCHAs:
