What’s a Zombie? What’s a Botnet? Your FAQ – answered.

Today’s question – “I’m always hearing about stuff to do with zombies and botnets, but what does it all mean?”

Zombies and botnets may sound like something from a science fiction flick, but they’re real things that can potentially happen to anyone with a computer connected to the Internet.

A botnet, which comprises the terms Robot and Network, from a computer security perspective, means a collection of computers that have become infected with malware that gives a criminal (or collection of criminals) control of them. Each computer that has been infected is referred to as a zombie (or slave computer.)

So if your computer becomes infected with this type of malware, then your computer becomes a part of this botnet network, and is a zombie. So this means that – to some extent – your computer is under the control of a computer criminal.

This leads us to this important question – what is the purpose of a botnet and what does it mean for a computer (and its user) once it becomes infected?

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There are many reasons why criminals use botnet networks. For example, a botnet allows a criminal to harness the processing power of many different computers which allows them to initiate more destructive types of computer crimes.

This could mean a criminal launches a DDOS attack on someone using all the zombie computers under their control. A DDOS attack is where large amounts of useless information is directed at a single network with the objective to flood that network by using up all its resources trying to process all the useless information being hurled its way. Because the amount of information being sent is so large, that network could crash because it is unable to deal with so much information, preventing legitimate users from using the network.

The criminal may be unable to generate so much useless information to send by using just their own computers, but if they utilise the power of thousands of zombie computers, the DDOS attack becomes more powerful, and more likely to succeed.

Criminals could also use zombie computers to send out large amounts of SPAM emails, or use them to spread other types of malware. Zombie computers can also be used to commit fraud and identity theft, attack to which the criminal does not want to risk doing on their own computer.

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So, a botnet is a network of computers infected with malware, and each one of these computers is referred to as a zombie. If you don’t run regular security software scans on your computer, you could unwittingly be using a zombie computer!

Helpful tips

Botnet malware infects your computer much like most other types of malware. This can be through being tricked into downloading malicious files from the Internet, opening dangerous email attachments, exploiting vulnerabilities in out-of-date software or by connecting suspicious storage devices to your computer.

Most botnet malware can be found and removed using up-to-date security software.

Botnet malware can cause your computer to go intermittently slower, or cause other suspicious activity. So keep an eye out for this sort of stuff and if you spot something odd, do a security scan.

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