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Tackling the Growing Botnet Threat
A botnet is made up of compromised hosts, which are commonly referred to as bots or zombies. Botnets are collections of compromised hosts, centrally managed, or managed from multiple points, but they’re logging into a location that’s easily manageable.
It’s hard to say with absolute certainty why botnets are ongoing and rising. The simple fact is the code is out there, it’s very easy to use, and if anybody has any questions, there’s free support on the Internet to assist in trying to get botnets to run, operate, or exploit vulnerable machines.
This column is based on a podcast recorded with Nick Ianelli and posted to CERT’s Podcast Series: Security for Business Leaders. Nick Ianelli is a member of the CERT Coordination Center, conducting artifact analysis on malicious code. Julia Allen, who interviewed him, manages CERT’s Podcast Series and conducts research in security governance and software assurance.