Botnets act as a force multiplier for individual attackers, cyber-criminal groups, and nation-states looking to disrupt or break into their targets’ systems. By definition, they are a collection of any type of internet-connected device that an attacker has compromised. Commonly used in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, botnets can also take advantage of their collective computing power to send large volumes of spam, steal credentials at scale, or spy on people and organizations.
About The Author
Maria Korolov
Maria Korolov is editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business. She has been a journalist for more than twenty years and has worked for the Chicago Tribune, Reuters, and Computerworld and has reported from over a dozen countries, including Russia and China.
Related Posts
Five iPad Safety Tips
CIO, CSO, Network World, PCWorld / February 14, 2011
1. Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt. There are two parts to the data encryption challenge – encrypting stored data, and encrypting data that’s moving over public networks,…
How to Survive a Cloud Outage
CSO / July 11, 2011
Amazon’s infamous cloud outage in April brought down a number of popular Web sites, including foursquare and Reddit – but many of Amazon’s enterprise cloud…