What Is a Botnet?

How Botnets Are Used

Getting a botnet up and running is only the first step. A botnet can be used as a platform for a variety of criminal activities, depending on how the bot-herder chooses to configure the individual nodes. In addition to identity theft, botnets have many uses, some of which are described in the following subsections.

• Spamming
• Phishing
• Denial-of-Service Attacks
• Installing Malware
• Click Fraud
• Stealing Confidential Data
• Distributing Malware
• Honeypots & Darknets