What Is A Botnet? And What are Botnets Used For?

Last updated: January 19, 2024 Reading time: 6 minutes
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What Is A Botnet?

Robot Networks, or rather Botnets, are exclusively designed for financial profit purposes, whereas many botnet attacks are mainly politically stimulated. It is a trend for attackers to rent botnets or rake-off attacks rather than develop their own. This is because botnets require much specialization and time to complete the high volume workload for their production and maintenance.

What Is a Botnet?

A botnet is an extensive network of Internet-connected devices that may include computers, routers, mobile phones, or even CCTV cameras operated by a single botmaster. The botmaster performs various tasks, often including malicious attacks if the botmaster becomes a cybercriminal. The botmaster performs illegal tasks himself or rents his botnet to others and often charges them by the hour.

Botnets are typically used for spamming, serving illegal material, click fraud, search engine optimization (SEO), and often for Bitcoin mining.

Mostly the victims of botnet attacks are unaware of their system breaching. This is because the targets of botnet attacks are mostly those devices that are no longer in use and have not been maintained either. Such machines are termed “” that remain unused but stay powered on and connected to the Internet.