On botnets

Abstract

A botnet is a network of computers on the Internet infected with software robots, bots. There are numerous botnets. Some of them control millions of computers. Botnets have become the platform for the scourge of the Internet, namely, spam e-mails, launch denial of service attacks, click fraud, theft of sensitive information, cyber sabotage, cyber warfare, etc. In this paper, we review the status of the botnets, how they work, and how they may be defeated.