Over the past decade, one of the most persistent and advanced threats that has evolved is known as the botnet. Botnets are criminally distributed networks ranging in size from a few hundred bot victims to more than 16 million hosts infected globally.

The underlying issue of botnets is their operators, who are operating in thousands of groups around the world using millions of victim systems around the world. Botnets have the ability to generate large amounts of illegal revenue for the developers, primary botnet controllers (masters), and the masters’ secondary/subordinate operators.

Fifteen years ago, a bot was a simple agent that ran in an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel and performed automated tasks for the master or operator of that IRC channel.

These bots could perform numerous tasks, ranging from the simple to the complicated, but they weren’t initially widely used for malicious purposes. Once the Internet solidified and became akin to the old Wild West, where researchers and explorers of new technology could create new variants of digital life, it also became a breeding ground for criminals.

Those who once needed to walk into a bank or store with a gun could now, without fear of apprehension, make off with even more money. The simple ability to remotely control hundreds to millions of computers distributed around the world from a central location, control panel, or control point is similar to cloud computing, but its operating goals are significantly different.

Read More: Botnet called VPNFilter has hacked 500,000 routers

The earlier inspirations of botnets were for the common computer enthusiast to generate a greater ego among the online counterculture. Today, botnets are still sometimes used for this purpose, but more frequently, they are employed for more nefarious goals.

Botnets are created, operated, and maintained by a wide range of cyber criminals and professional cyber criminals.

The following are some of the observables of the botnet threat.

Know Your Network

Numerous methods and techniques are being developed every day to infiltrate networks and exfiltrate sensitive information.

This is why implementing active countermeasures against specific persistent and advanced threats is imperative. Your threats will have the upper hand and the capability to move faster, easier, and slicker than your security team unless you use the proper tools and have the right knowledge of your network to defend against them.

One of the wisest men in history once said:

Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Read More: New DNS Botnet Hijacked Over 100,000 Routers 

After you realize that this chapter is from book written in 2012. then you need to ask yourself is your network really protected?