According to Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence, botnets were responsible for 90% of spam in 2008. More importantly, these compromised "robot" computer networks do not seem to be going away anytime soon.

The ever changing nature of botnets make them hard to detect and even harder to defend against. MessageLabs' latest industry white paper, "How to Defend Against New Botnet Attacks" aims to help you understand how to fight them.

About Bots or A Bout w/Bots

A "bot" is a type of malware that allows an attacker to take control over an affected computer. Also known as “Web robots”, bots are usually part of a network of infected machines, known as a “botnet”, which is typically made up of victim machines that stretch across the globe.

Since a bot infected computer does the bidding of its master, many people refer to these victim machines as “zombies.”

The cybercriminals that control these bots are called botherders or botmasters.

Some botnets might have a few hundred or a couple thousand computers, but others have tens and even hundreds of thousands of zombies at their disposal. Many of these computers are infected without their owners' knowledge. Some possible warning signs? A bot might cause your computer to slow down, display mysterious messages, or even crash.

How Bots Work

Bots sneak onto a person’s computer in many ways. Bots often spread themselves across the Internet by searching for vulnerable, unprotected computers to infect. When they find an exposed computer, they quickly infect the machine and then report back to their master. Their goal is then to stay hidden until they are instructed to carry out a task. After a computer is taken over by a bot, it can be used to carry out a variety of automated tasks.


To download the whitepaper from ZDNet, click here