botnet

play

noun bot·net \ ˈbät-ˌnet \

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

One recent botnet aimed at the company appeared to be coming from thousands of Russian routers, Neino said.

— jill leovy, The Seattle Times, "Unlikely duo pulled the plug on WannaCry cyberattack," 7 July 2017
Meanwhile, the fire hose of botnets and malware gushing through the Internet these days leaves victims feeling helpless.

— jill leovy, latimes.com, "How a tiny L.A. cybersecurity firm pulled the plug on a global ransomware attack," 29 June 2017
Using that same malware, Bogachev also created one of the largest botnets in 2011, known as GameoverZeus.

— jack detsch, The Christian Science Monitor, "How Russia and others use cybercriminals as proxies," 28 June 2017
US law-enforcement officials, in tandem with authorities from 10 other countries, were eventually able to take down the botnet, and charged Bogachev with computer hacking, bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

— jack detsch, The Christian Science Monitor, "How Russia and others use cybercriminals as proxies," 28 June 2017
A group of Russian hackers — possibly working at the behest of the Russian government — has been distributing a malicious Firefox extension, which can draft compromised computers into a botnet.

— marshall honorof senior writer, Fox News, "Britney Spears's Instagram account is a malware target," 7 June 2017
The website's usual users, Turla reasoned, would download and install the innocuous-sounding extension, then become part of Turla's botnet.

— marshall honorof senior writer, Fox News, "Britney Spears's Instagram account is a malware target," 7 June 2017
The botnet known as Mirai knocked a swath of major sites off the web last September, including Spotify, Reddit, and the New York Times.

— andy greenberg, WIRED, "Hackers Are Trying to Reignite WannaCry With Non-Stop Botnet Attacks," 19 May 2017
Like Locky and Bart, Jaff is distributed via malicious spam emails sent by the Necurs botnet, according to researchers from Malwarebytes.

— lucian constantin, PCWorld, "The nasty new Jaff ransomware demands $3,700 payments," 12 May 2017

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.