What Is a Botnet?
Botnets are networks of compromised Internet-connected devices. They are often used by bad actors to carry out a wide variety of cyberattacks.
Botnets allow an attacker to perform large-scale attacks from a central point. While this approach is more efficient than traditional attack methods, it is more difficult to maintain.
A botnet can be made up of hundreds of computers, mobile devices, servers, and even IoT devices. These infected machines can be used to execute CPU-intensive tasks or collect sensitive data.
Bots are usually controlled by a bot herder. The herder’s job is to infect and control the botnet. He or she can use social engineering to install the malware on the infected computers.
Bots are also useful in phishing campaigns. When a bot program receives a spam email, it attempts to contact a remote website, which will send the message back to the bot herder. This results in thousands of spam emails sent to the victim’s inbox.
Many botnets are now capable of controlling hundreds of thousands of devices. In order to do so, hackers design a system for managing the network remotely.
One type of botnet is the peer-to-peer model, which allows bots to share information with each other. Peer-to-peer models are more difficult to implement, but they have higher resilience than other types of botnets.
Another form of botnet is a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS), which overwhelms a targeted server. This type of attack is especially common during high-traffic times.