Biggest Cyber Threats Likely To Hamper Your Business |
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The word ‘botnet’ is essentially derived by clubbing the words ‘robot’ and ‘internet’. Therefore, botnet is a collection of various devices connected through internet, such as PCs, mobile devices, servers or any other device supporting internet. The devices forming a botnet are infected and controlled by a malware. They are already designed to cause damage in several nasty ways to the organisation or individuals they choose to target . The damage and control of botnets is so smart that the users of these devices hardly get to know that their system is being controlled externally. Botnets are often controlled by a single cyber criminal or a group of them. They are generally used for certain specific purposes, so that the malicious damage can be inflicted secretly. The most common use of botnets is to send spam mails to certain organisations and trying to hack into their system. They also tend to engage in click-fraud campaigns where users of infected devices are secretly encouraged to click on certain pages and links, therefore artificially increasing the traffic for various denial-of-service attacks. Botnets are also widely used to carry out phishing in a better and more advanced manner.
The malware of botnets typically looks for vulnerable devices all across the internet instead of targeting individuals or companies specifically. This widens the radius of damage botnets can cause, as any vulnerable device connected to the internet can be targeted by the attackers. The core objective of creating a botnet is nothing but to infect as many connected devices as possible and to take control of certain devices for performing automated tasks, without giving the user any hint. However, in order to stay secretive, the botnet would not take absolute control of the web browsers. Overtly controlling the whole web browser could alert the user and would lead to consequences. The most destructive quality of botnets is that they cannot be detected by anyone easily; no matter how professional the person is. The botnet that combines a large number of devices would be able to generate a massive amount of traffic which is essentially fake, but looks so organic that is escapes the scan of detection. Such botnets are widely used for infamous ad frauds, where they create fake traffic to rank higher on search engines. This is how botnets are designed to play smart and cause damage without the user realising the fact that they are being secretly controlled.
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