botnet

noun bot·net \ ˈbät-ˌnet \

|Updated on: 5 Jul 2018

Definition of botnet

: a network of computers that have been linked together by malware : a network of bots (see ³bot 2b)

Criminals link hijacked personal computers together to form "botnets"—clusters of infected PCs that spammers can control from anywhere in the world.
—Dave Mosher

Recent Examples of botnet from the Web

Beforehand the botnet had spent its time promoting pornography and commercial products.

— The Economist, "Russian disinformation distorts American and European democracy," 24 Feb. 2018
JenX is an example of the second generation of IoT botnets.

— dan goodin, Ars Technica, "New IoT botnet offers DDoSes of once-unimaginable sizes for $20," 1 Feb. 2018
The botnet is said in government court filings to be under the control of the Russian hackers known as the Sofacy Group.

— david shortell, CNN, "Justice Department announces seizure of domain behind Russian-backed botnet," 24 May 2018
Muhstik has adopted some of the infection techniques seen in recent Internet-of-things botnets.

— dan goodin, Ars Technica, "“Drupalgeddon2” touches off arms race to mass-exploit powerful Web servers," 20 Apr. 2018
Old-school DDoS This month's attacks abusing memcached servers harken back to older DDoS attacks that don't require massive botnets.

— dan goodin, Ars Technica, "In-the-wild DDoSes use new way to achieve unthinkable sizes," 27 Feb. 2018
But security firm Check Point now says that RottenSys has evolved to also conscript its victims into a botnet.

— brian barrett, WIRED, "Security News This Week: A Smartphone Botnet Army Keeps Growing Stronger," 17 Mar. 2018
Now some miners are employing a trick first popularized by botnet software that bypasses ad blocking.

— dan goodin, Ars Technica, "Ad network uses advanced malware technique to conceal CPU-draining mining ads," 27 Feb. 2018
Vosoughi agrees that his paper cannot whether the use of botnets changed at the end of the sample period.

— robinson meyer, The Atlantic, "The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News," 8 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'botnet.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.