Botnets

Botnets are networks of computers used without their owner’s knowledge for cybercrime such as spamming and the automated theft of valuable data such as credit card information and even politically motivated cyberattacks. “Botnets: 10 Tough Questions” is a policy-level distillation of ENISA’s consultation with top experts from all sides of the fight against botnets, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), security researchers, law enforcement, Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and anti-virus vendors. The botnet numbers define the political agenda and they determine 100’s of millions of Euros of security investments. The report concludes that many botnet figures are likely to be inaccurate and even small numbers of bots can cause severe damage. Size is not everything – the number of infected machines alone is an inappropriate measure of the threat, relevance “Botnets: Measurement, Detection, Disinfection and Defence” is a comprehensive report on how to assess botnet threats and how to neutralise them.