Botnets: The New Threat Landscape

A botnet is an army of compromised machines, also known as "Zombies," that are under the command and control of a single "Botmaster." The rise of consumer broadband has greatly increased the power of botnets to launch crippling Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on servers, infect millions of computers with spyware and other malicious code, steal identity data, send out vast quantities of spam, and engage in click fraud, blackmail, and extortion. Botnets are the primary security threat on the Internet today. It is easy to commission botnet attack services and hackers are quicker than ever to exploit new vulnerabilities. This white paper discusses the typical lifecycle of a botnet, the damage caused by botnet attacks, and the most effective detection and mitigation techniques.