Bot herders are
hackers
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bugs or exploits to break ...
who use automated techniques to scan specific network ranges and find vulnerable systems, such as machines without current
security patch
A patch is data that is intended to be used to modify an existing software resource such as a program or a file, often to fix bugs and security vulnerabilities. A patch may be created to improve functionality, usability, or performance. A pa ...
es, on which to install their
bot
Bot or BOT may refer to:
Sciences
Computing and technology
* Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language
* Internet bot, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet
**Spambot, an internet bot ...
program. The infected machine then becomes one of many
zombies
A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore ...
in a
botnet
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more Internet bot, bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service attack, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send Spamming, sp ...
and responds to commands given by the bot herder, usually via an
Internet Relay Chat
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for Many-to-many, group communication in discussion forums, called ''#Channels, channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via instant mess ...
channel.
One of the new bot herders includes the controller of
Conficker
Conficker, also known as Downup, Downadup and Kido, is a computer worm targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system that was first detected in November 2008. It uses flaws in Windows OS software (MS08-067 / CVE-2008-4250) and dictionary atta ...
.
A bot herder usually uses a pseudonym to keep themselves anonymous and may use
proxy servers,
shell account
A shell account is a user account on a remote server, typically running under Unix or Linux operating systems. The account gives access to a text-based command-line interface in a shell, via a terminal emulator. The user typically communicates w ...
s, and
bouncers to conceal their
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...
thus maintaining anonymity.
See also
*
Internet bot
An Internet bot, web robot, robot, or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks ( scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the ...
*
Botnet
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more Internet bot, bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service attack, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send Spamming, sp ...
References
Botnets
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