Taken together, the government says, the combined botnets included more than 1 million computers.
Hi-tech criminals use botnets to send out spam, phishing e-mails and launch attacks on websites.
Botnets start when a virus infects a computer, either through spam or an infected web page.
Most of the spam sent around the net is funnelled through machines that are in botnets.
"Other botnets have been rented out in the past, but never Storm, " says F-secure researcher Patrik Runald.
Their focus on fighting botnets turns out to be just what people are looking for post Google-Aurora.
Bad guys also have the ability to infect clouds with spyware, botnets and other malicious programs, Reavis said.
But after anti-spam laws were passed and botnets were shut down, junk mail coming from these countries decreased.
In 2004, Schichtel was one of four men accused of using botnets to carry out attacks on websites.
Soloway is accused of using "botnets"--groups of millions of personal computers hijacked with hidden software--to send his mass e-mails.
But what is most interesting, in this context, are the other unrelated targets that the same botnets also attacked.
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Aside from purposeful leaking by employees, that also allows computers hijacked by malware and drawn into botnets to exfiltrate data.
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As I have often reported, tracing botnets to their masters is difficult at best and can be a Sisyphean task.
Millions of PCs are enrolled in these networks, known as botnets, and many help to send out junk mail messages.
Nobody knows for sure, but it is thought that millions of PCs are part of thousands of botnets across the Internet.
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And with some additional work by sophisticated malware code writers, cross-platform exploits can easily be created using botnets like Flashfake.
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Georgia's attackers employed "botnets, " or malicious automated programs that take root undetected in far-flung computers and barrage their targets with useless data.
Owners of botnets also scour infected machines for information that can be sold on the underground auction sites and markets found online.
Anonymization services add another obstacle on the increasingly complex paths of botnets.
Unlike other botnets, Storm has no single command-and-control point--it functions as a peer-to-peer system where any hijacked computer can give and receive commands.
Botnets can send spam and flood Web sites with countless requests for information, a cyber attack also known as distributed denial of service.
Moreover, these actions can trigger lots of other laws (particularly if botnets are involved), such as intellectual property, spam, fraud, contract, and tort laws.
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Virut was a widespread threat as early as 2008, as it had a unique hybrid capability that allowed it to spread through other botnets.
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"The criminals responsible for this spam campaign are experts at exploiting social engineering to propagate their botnets, " said Bradley Anstis from security firm Marshal.
Botnets -- some of which are large enough to deploy tens of billions of spam e-mails a day -- are often used in extortion schemes.
By now you are aware of the danger from these botnets.
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Evidence of how botnets were growing, he said, could be found in the number of infected machines Microsoft was freeing from the clutches of botnets.
Spam, phishing and website attacks are often run through these botnets.
Botnets built around networks of compromised personal computers are bad enough.
Botnets are often used to mount distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks - forcing websites offline - to run spyware or to send out spam emails.
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