What is a Botnet ?

The word Botnet is formed from the words ‘robot’ and ‘network’.

Cybercriminals use special Trojan viruses to breach the security of several users’ computers, take control of each computer and organise all of the infected machines into a network of ‘bots’ that the criminal can remotely manage.

Bots are one of the most sophisticated and popular types of cybercrime today.

They allow hackers to take control of many computers at a time, and turn them into 'zombie' computers, which operate as part of a powerful 'botnet' to spread viruses, generate spam, and commit other types of online crime and fraud.

A 'bot' is a type of malware that allows an attacker to take control over an affected computer.

Also known as “Web robots”, bots are usually part of a network of infected machines, known as a “botnet”,

which is typically made up of victim machines that stretch across the globe

Since a bot infected computer does the bidding of its master, many people refer to these victim machines as “zombies.”

The cybercriminals that control these bots are called botherders or botmasters.

Some botnets might have a few hundred or a couple thousand computers, but others have tens and even hundreds of thousands of zombies at their disposal.

Many of these computers are infected without their owners' knowledge.

Some possible warning signs? A bot might cause your computer to slow down, display mysterious messages, or even crash.
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