Botnet

A network of compromised devices remotely controlled by an attacker.

A botnet is a fleet of compromised devices (“bots” or “zombies”) under an attacker’s command-and-control (C2), monetized through DDoS, credential stuffing, spam, and crypto-mining. Detection often comes from spotting unusual outbound C2 traffic — beaconing to unfamiliar hosts on a regular interval. IoT botnets like Mirai grew huge by exploiting weak default credentials on cameras and routers, which is why changing defaults and segmenting IoT matters.

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