botnet

[ bot-net ]

/ ˈbɒtˌnɛt /

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noun Computers.

a network of computers created by malware and controlled remotely, without the knowledge of the users of those computers: The botnet was used primarily to send spam emails.Hackers built the botnet to carry out DDoS attacks.

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Origin of botnet

First recorded in 1990–95 in earlier sense “a network of bots”; bot¹ + net(work)

Words nearby botnet

both ways, Bothwell, bothy, bothy ballad, Botkin, botnet, boto, botonée, Botox, bo tree, botryoidal

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use botnet in a sentence

The company said that the attackers are physically located in China and often rely on botnets made up of routers or other types of IoT devices.
SolarWinds 0-day gave Chinese hackers privileged access to customer servers|Dan Goodin|July 14, 2021|Ars Technica
Zero Day Clothing has some excellent t-shirts and other clothing for your hacker or security-minded friends, from celebrating Diffie-Hellman encryption, fearing the botnet or designing your own — there’s something for everyone.
Gift Guide: 9 security and privacy gifts to keep your friends and family safe|Zack Whittaker|December 11, 2020|TechCrunch
Trickbot operators sell access to their vast number of infected machines to other criminals, who use the botnet to spread bank trojans, ransomware, and a host of other malicious software.
One of the Internet’s most aggressive threats could take UEFI malware mainstream|Dan Goodin|December 3, 2020|Ars Technica
Along with other development choices, this leads us to believe that the botnet is used as a proxy network, potentially offered as an anonymization service.
Thousands of infected IoT devices used in for-profit anonymity service|Dan Goodin|October 16, 2020|Ars Technica

We’re sure that they are going to notice and it will be hard for them to get back to the state that the botnet was in.
Microsoft tries to take down a global criminal botnet|Verne Kopytoff|October 12, 2020|Fortune
The attacks are often coordinated by a botnet, a web of compromised computers acting at the whim of the hackers behind the attack.
Did Russian Authorities Shut Down Ustream?|Ben Jacobs, Anna Nemtsova|May 9, 2012|DAILY BEAST
The attack was accomplished by means of a botnet, and for that I felt bad, but it was in the service of a good cause.
Little Brother|Cory Doctorow
There are so many infected PCs on the Internet that the price of hiring an hour or two on a botnet has crashed.
Little Brother|Cory Doctorow

British Dictionary definitions for botnet

botnet

/ (ˈbɒtˌnɛt) /

noun

(sometimes with a capital) a network of computers infected by a program that communicates with its creator in order to send unsolicited emails, attack websites, etc

Word Origin for botnet

C20: from (ro) bot + net (work)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012