"A botnet is basically a group of infected or zombie computers that are all under the control of one central bot master, sometimes called a bot herder. The term bot, incidentally is short for robot, describing the behavior of these zombie computers. The bot master uses malicious code to gain control of a person's computer and can use a network of zombie computers to engage in illegal activities such as identity theft, massive scam campaigns, click fraud or targeted attacks. Botnets can be huge, thousand or hundreds of thousands of computers strong and distributed around the globe."
Symantec is selling Norton AntiBot…and other security suites designed to monitor your PCs…to prevent them from becoming part of a botnet. Competitors like McAfee are offering protection as well. Why should consumers care if their PCs become part of a botnet?
"Bots are using your information. One they might steal your personal information, but I think even more concerning, is that a bot master, if you've got a bot infected computer, is using your identity to do illegal things."
The all in one security package…Norton 360….sells for about 80 dollars. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.