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Botnet

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BOTNET
What is Botnet? Botnets are malicious software that criminals distribute to computers and turn them into a zombie. When a computer is infected with a botnet your computer can perform tasks over the internet while you have no clue its happening. Normally criminals infect a large number of computers forming a network or a botnet. Botnets send out spam emails to spread viruses attack other computers and to commit other kind of crime and fraud. Some botnets can be large some can be small but size does not matter either way damage will be done regardless. Some of the most popular botnets are Conficker which never has activated to cause significant damage, but that don’t exactly means the threat is gone for it still remains very active. Another one is called Zeus. Zeus is a large botnet and has much detection mainly because individuals can configure it to use a different command. Zeus is mainly is configured to steal information such as banking credentials and send it to its attacker. Waledac works thru a peer-peer network and it can load malicious software, and proxy HTTP content to host malicious websites. Bredolab main focus is on downloading Scareware, fake anti-virus programs, and Ransonware. Their plan is to infect many computers with these programs and hope the victims purchase these programs and make some profit. Pushdo/Cutwail is two different botnets that use each other. Pushdo is a loader which means it downloads components to install on a system. It is customized for clients to install specific malware. Pushdo will always download Cutwail (an e-mail spamming engine) and Webail (web-based spamming engine). Pushdo uses Cutwail to create copies of it so the botnet can grow. Those were the big 5 of botnets. How can you break a botnet? Well for starters you can get rid of windows on your computer since botnets are only a windows problem and don’t exist

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