Memory scalpers hunt scarce DRAM with bot blitz • The Register

Web scraping bots are increasing the pressure on the tech supply chain by scouring sites for DRAM, so their minders can snap up increasingly scarce inventory and resell it for a quick profit.

DataDome, an online security biz, reports that its Galileo threat team spotted a large-scale data gathering operation that has submitted more than 10 million web scraping requests in an effort to find sellers carrying desirable DRAM stock. The bots have been hitting select sites every 6.5 seconds to query inventories of DRAM and raw hardware components like DIMM sockets.

And the people behind the crawlers appear to be using AI tools to enhance the effectiveness of their scraping runs.

"Fraudsters will combine various tooling and commodities to perform fraud at scale, but it's not always obvious what they are using, or for which purpose," said Jérôme Segura, VP of threat research at DataDome, in an email to The Register. "Having said that, we have observed threat actors discuss the use of AI to reverse-engineer anti-bot protection or to automate scripting tasks. AI is unique in that it gives leverage from script kiddies all the way to professional scrapers."

According to DataDome, the inquisitive bots have been hitting DRAM product pages on e-commerce sites at a rate almost 6x more often than legitimate users and friendly crawlers. And these memory sniffers have been relying on a technique known as cache busting to ensure they get the most up-to-date information. Cache busting involves appending parameters to page requests so they appear different from prior requests. This ensures that the server loads the latest product information instead of serving cached data that may not reflect current product availability.

The bots are also tuned to throttle their requests to an acceptable rate – presumably tested in advance – so they don't get rate limited.

The bot campaign appears to be focused on identifying available DRAM, and doesn't involve automated purchasing of memory. But acquiring memory for resale is the plan.

"By rapidly snapping up the limited DDR5 memory inventory for profitable resale, these bots further deplete the consumer supply, effectively boxing out legitimate customers and driving market prices even higher," the DataDome report says.

DRAM, specifically DDR5 memory, has been in short supply since last November, as accelerating infrastructure deployment from hyperscalers and AI giants has increased demand for memory. The resulting memory drought is expected to double the price of DRAM in Q1 2026, and to increase the cost of NAND too.

With so much supply spoken for by large cloud providers, mid-tier and smaller cloud vendors have been forced to raise their prices, as Hetzner recently did. The starved supply chain is also expected to limit entry-level PC and phone shipments.

This bot-driven scalping operation represents a troubling evolution in how AI and automation are being weaponized against supply chains. While memory shortages were already creating headaches for everyone from cloud providers to PC builders, these automated scalpers are essentially adding insult to injury by systematically depleting whatever limited consumer inventory remains.

The sophistication of these bots is particularly concerning. By using cache-busting techniques and carefully throttled request rates, they're able to operate under the radar while gathering real-time inventory data. The reported use of AI tools to enhance scraping effectiveness suggests this is becoming a more professionalized operation, with threat actors leveraging the same technologies that legitimate businesses use for competitive intelligence.

What makes this especially problematic is the feedback loop it creates. As DRAM becomes scarcer due to AI infrastructure demand, prices rise. Then these bots snap up available inventory, further reducing supply and driving prices even higher. This leaves legitimate consumers and smaller businesses in an impossible position – they're competing against automated systems designed specifically to outmaneuver them in the market.

The timing couldn't be worse. With the memory shortage expected to persist through at least Q1 2026, and potentially longer given the ongoing AI infrastructure buildout, these bot operations threaten to make an already difficult situation even more painful for anyone trying to source DRAM for legitimate purposes. It's a stark reminder that in the age of AI, even something as seemingly mundane as memory chips has become a battleground for automated competition.