botnet

Computers that are coopted to serve in a zombie army are often those whose owners fail to provide effective firewalls and other safeguards. An increasing number of home users have high speed connections for computers that may be inadequately protected. A zombie or bot is often created through an Internet port that has been left open and through which a small Trojan horse program can be left for future activation. At a certain time, the zombie army "controller" can unleash the effects of the army by sending a single command, possibly from an Internet Relay Channel (IRC) site.

The computers that form a botnet can be programmed to redirect transmissions to a specific computer, such as a Web site that can be closed down by having to handle too much traffic - a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack - or, in the case of spam distribution, to many computers. The motivation for a zombie master who creates a DDoS attack may be to cripple a competitor. The motivation for a zombie master sending spam is in the money to be made. Both of them rely on unprotected computers that can be turned into zombies.

According to the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, through the first six months of 2006, there were 4,696,903 active botnet computers.

Learn more about Malware, Viruses, Trojans and Spyware

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More resources from around the web: - SearchSecurity.com offers more resources in its Featured Topic on botnets. - On SearchSecurity.com, Shawna McAlearney explains the threat of the botnet. - The Washington Post profiles a botnet master. - The SANS Institute provides an overview of bots and botnets. - Jordan Robertson reports that 'Security Wonks Warn of Cell Phone Zombie Uprising.'

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