How to Prevent Botnet Attacks

“Botnet” or “Zombie army” is a network of compromised computers which can communicate with each other by giving third-party access to the computer without the admin’s knowledge. Each infected computer is called “Bot” or “Zombie.” IoT devices are also used in botnets. The one who controls the botnet is called “bot herder” or “Botmaster.”

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Botnets are used for various criminal activities like DDoS attacks, spamming, data-theft, etc. Bot herders try to expand Botnets by spamming malicious links in social networking sites. From there, the computer can be affected by botnet viruses or worms. Once infected, your computer tries to communicate with the bot herder’s command and control (C&C).

Symptoms of an infected computer:

• Reduced computational power
• Pop-up windows from unknown applications
• Large SMTP(Simple mail transfer protocol) traffic is detected
• Check for messages, emails, chats that are not sent by you

Prevention:

• Keeping your software up-to-date because security patches updates are pushed over time.
• Install Anti-virus software which helps in detecting the malware
• Never click on links that are not trustworthy. Malware is often spread using links
• Keep monitoring your computer regularly so that you find irregular behavior

   References:1. https://www.kaspersky.co.in/resource-center/threats/botnet-attacks2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet