ABSTRACT:
Bot programs are codes or programs that operate automatically as agents for a user or another program. As IRC gained popularity among internet users, inappropriate behavior became a problem. Misbehaving users were klined (ejected) from IRC channels. As payback, some ejected users developed ways to attack the IRC channel, which led to the IRC wars that caused the first DDoS attacks in the mid-1990s. Zombies are nodes in the sleeper cells of machines waiting to be activated by their command and control (C&C) servers. The C&C servers are often machines that have been compromised and arranged in a distributed structure to limit traceability. Once the botnet controllers are authenticated and logged in, they can issue attack commands to the servers via IRC channels or using P2P technologies. A brief overview on building a botnet is discussed in the article which includes two steps that are: information gathering stage and exploitation and propagation stage. Several academic and industry studies have found that financially motivated high tech crime cases are on the rise. The FBI recently reported that financial loss due to cybercrime in 2004 was estimated at US$400 billion (McAfee 2005).
The survey in the UK (PWC 2006) also indicated that information security breaches cost UK companies across several industry sectors £10 billion per annum.
