botnet

noun

bot·net | \ ˈbät-ˌnet

Definition of botnet

: a network of computers that have been linked together by malware : a network of bots (see bot entry 3 sense 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

Examples of botnet in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Unlike Wyoming, though, the internet still seems capable of blasting open new and dangerous frontiers, from botnet swarms to deep state hacks. — Jesse Jarnow, WIRED, "The Ghost of John Perry Barlow Lives in His Posthumous Memoir," 5 June 2018 The botnet then used that pilfered information to send links to friends of the infected person. — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "Malicious Chrome extensions infect 100,000-plus users, again," 10 May 2018 Curators can also identify the cultural flash points—the NFL, Colin Kaepernick, the memo—that fire people up, so botnets can ratchet up the velocity of the most incendiary memes. — Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, "Social Media Makes Us Soldiers in the War Against Ourselves," 2 May 2018 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

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.