Basic Cybersecurity: What Is A Botnet?
When talking about hackers and cybercriminals, we must avoid confusing the terms. Although most malicious hackers, popularly known as “Black Hats,” are cybercriminals, not all people who use the internet to harm others can be called hackers. This denotes sophistication or technological knowledge that few possess.
Many business people choose not to hire digital security measures because they believe these criminals are few and only attack transnational companies with the most significant economic power, but this is false. Tools created by malicious users with fundamental knowledge are used by many others seeking harm. The frequency of violations of companies or individuals can be explained in a way that almost anyone can harm us if we do not protect ourselves with solutions that shield our connections.
On this occasion, we will deal with one of those malicious tools, especially difficult to prepare, but once you have it, it is even rented to flood corporate servers for the purpose of disabling business pages and online financial services, regardless of their size. This is known as a “botnet,” a network of zombie computers that, like the undead, attack without knowing what they are doing and without the consent of their legitimate users. How can we avoid being part of a network like this? How to protect ourselves from these attacks?
Avoid Turning Into A Zombie
The central question surrounding the ”botnets” about the computers that they hijack to become part of them is how is this possible? The rarely mentioned ability to take control of someone’s personal computer is one of the possible side effects of being infected by a virus, especially ones we call ”Trojans”.
Disguised as a beneficial program for the user, the “Trojans” are installed on purpose by the user, without knowing that internally he is giving them access to a function that uses his personal computer as an accomplice in DDoS attacks or even in simple spam shipments, on a massive level.
These attacks are capable of disabling bank-scale organizations if they use a large enough ”botnet” and, hard to believe, networks of up to millions of computers have been recorded.
The possibility that we are infected by one of these Trojans capable of using us as a zombie is more real. Just as spyware does, the fact that these viruses do not affect the performance of our computers makes them go completely unnoticed. For the same reason, they are a reminder of how important it is not to leave the security of our digital assets to chance or intuition.
There are two problems to overcome; first, how to know if we are part of a ”botnet”? For this, a comprehensive protection solution such as a Managed Multifunctional, which includes a powerful antivirus scanner, can definitively reveal to us if this external influence exists and give us a tool to eliminate it from the root. These same approaches are especially effective, as they include “Firewalls” or Filters that prevent a “Trojan” like that from infiltrating again.
Second, how to protect ourselves from a coordinated attack with a ”botnet”? The most important thing here is prevention. Maintaining constant monitoring through a solution such as Clean Pipes or a Managed WAF allows us to take care of the traffic that approaches our servers so that the IT team can see the danger coming before it is too late.
Its presence causes an overload that breaks our website, for example. There are many appropriate solutions, but the most important thing is to find one accompanied by expert advice and monitoring that cares that the solution is implemented correctly.
Also Read: This Is How The Future Cyberattacks Will Be.
