Yes, some bots can enable or commit several types of fraud, including click fraud against PPC providers such as Google, Yahoo and smaller pay-per-click programs.

Botnets are growing across the Internet at an alarming rate. The only thing matching the increase in criminal use of botnets is the increasing sophistication of their operators.  You can get a bot cleaner put on your computer to protect you from most bots, but you have to run it and update it.

People who are operating these networks of bots are unidentified, and there is a real chance they will expand their work. The folks who hack at this level are very dangerous and so are the people that they work for.  Several operations were traced to Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslavia, China, and even to North Korea.  There are several crime organizations reportedly doing this, some of whom sell Trojans to each other and outsiders.

Botnets are described as a cross between a computer virus and the Borg. Where viruses are designed to act independently, botnets are literally networks of infected computers that can be controlled by a master computer. Infection comes in the form of a malicious code or malware. This code can get onto a system in a number of ways including email attachments, music or video downloads, and through open ports and flakey firewalls.

Most people never know they are running it.  It is said to be amazingly easy to acquire these malicious files. These types of files come in all shapes and sizes. Some burrow into a computer’s registry as a worm, some are invited in as Trojans, and some are attached to ID phishing attempts. Inside a computer, malicious files can perform whatever functions they are programmed to do. Some are even designed to accomplish multiple tasks from recording ID and keystroke information to using infected computers to mimic live visitors in click fraud schemes.

Let me know what botnet cleaner utilities you can find out there.

Congratulations to the University of Florida Football Team on their National Championship win over Ohio State University!

Arthur Browning