BOTNETS: Is it really that big of a problem?

Botnets are one of the most sophisticated and popularly committed cybercrime in today's cyberspace. They allow attackers to control of many computers at a time using a backdoor, and turn them into "bot clients", which act as soldiers in the attackers zombie army or bot army and are used for various cyber attacks like DDoS, spread viruses, generate spam, etc..

Some commonly associated terms with botnets are:

• Bot Herder/ Bot Master: The attacker who launches the attack and controls the botnet.
• Command & Control: A command and control server (C&C server) is the centralized computer that issues commands to bot clients and receives reports back from them. IRC server is a most common example of a C&C server.
• Bot Clients: These are the systems of normal users which are infected by the attacker and are now part of the botnet. These are also known as zombies.

The botnet is a multipurpose weapon for attackers as it can be used to launch various types of attacks. Due to this property of botnets they are continuously in huge demand and are easily available for rent and purchase in the dark-web marketplace. Bot masters try to make easy and big bucks by selling or renting their botnet to interested parties which are most likely: terrorist organizations, governments, national agencies.

This post was just an introduction to botnets in consecutive posts I'll be writing about some popular types of attacks associated with botnets: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Malware Distribution, Spam and Phishing Scam and the last post will be dedicated on safety against botnet attacks.