Botnets attack individual users, companies and even entire countries. Although numerous botnets have spread across the cloud, the vast majority are just variants. Among its variations, some stand out for the damage they can cause and the number of infected systems. See below for more information about what are the three worst botnets of the decade.
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Most malware nowadays is “disjointed”, it is already well known and easily blocked by hackers. antivirus programs, and only have the potential to become a new threat if changes are made to their code original. However, others are still active and can do a lot of damage.
A botnet is a network of infected computers that can be remotely controlled and forced to send spam, spread malware or carry out DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks without the consent of the owner of the target device.
1. rustock
Rustock, discovered in 2006 (possibly in Russia), spread like a Trojan horse, infecting documents downloaded from the Internet or received as email attachments. Affected devices sent over 20,000 spam messages every hour when they were active. It was dismantled by US law in collaboration with Microsoft, FireEye and the University of Washington.
2. Storm
Virtually disjointed, Storm, discovered in 2007, was by far the largest and most widespread botnet. It had the facility to sell or rent to others especially with its DDoS capabilities. Spam has greatly facilitated its spread, but its attackers also distribute it when downloaded from popular infected sites, making downloads a major factor in the infection.
3. Cutwail
In its heyday, also discovered in 2007 (probably Russian), Cutwail was responsible for nearly half of all spam on the Internet, sending 74 billion such messages every day. Currently it is still active and available for rent.