Botnet

What is a botnet?

 A botnet is a group of internet-connected devices such as personal computers, servers, mobile phones, etc. that are controlled remotely by a malware. Users are usually not aware of this infection.

Internet attackers and hackers usually lead these attacks for specific purposes. Botnets are usually used to send emails, fake advertisements, and DDoS.

How does a botnet work?

The term botnet comes from the combination of ‘robot’ and ‘network’. Here, a robot is a device or server which is infected by a malware. This infection is controlled by a single attacker or a group of attackers. A robot is called a zombie as well and a group of robots are referred to as an army of zombies.

Instead of infecting special people, companies or industries, botnets look for vulnerable devices on internet. The goal is to infect the calculation sources in these devices which is hidden to the user.

For instance, a botnet, after attacking a personal computer, takes over the search engines through which it sends fake internet traffic to some servers. However, in order to stay in a shadow, it does not control the whole engine to prevent any warning to the user. It usually controls those search engine functions in the background that are not visible to the user.

If a part of a bandwidth of a single device is used by this infection, it is of no good use to the attackers. However, a botnet which controls over a million devices at once can lead a huge fake internet traffic to a server without being detected easily.