3. An Internet bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or
simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks
(scripts) over the Internet
Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and
structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be
possible for a human alone
Bots are routinely used on the internet where the emulation of
human activity is required, for example chat bots. A simple
question and answer exchange online may appear to be with
another person, when in fact it is simply with a bot
Some bots communicate with other users of Internet-based
services, via instant messaging (IM), internet relay chats (IRC), or
another web interface.
4. Legitimate Bots
Spider Bots: Used by the search engines to explore Web pages for content.
Trading Bots: These spider the online auction sites to locate the best deals
on a specific product or service.
Media Bots: Media bots are used to provide updates on weather conditions,
& news.
Malicious Bots
Spam Bots: Used for collecting data from forms that have been filled out
online, spreading advertisements and pop-ups throughout the Internet,
and collecting email addresses for the purpose of spamming.
Hacker Bots: Hackers use this type of bot to crawl around the Internet and
find vulnerabilities in websites
Botnets: Botnets are networks that hackers set up online by using "zombie"
computers to perform malicious acts such as denial of service attacks.
5. A spambot is a computer program designed to assist in the
sending of spam.
Spambots usually create accounts and send spam messages
with them.
E-mail spambots harvest e-mail addresses from material
found on the Internet in order to build mailing lists for
sending unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam .
Such spambots are web crawlers that can gather e-mail
addresses from websites, newsgroups, special-interest group
(SIG) postings, and chat-room conversations.
Because e-mail addresses have a distinctive format, such
spambots are easy to code
6. Bots pose a significant and growing threat against cyber
security
It provides key platform for many cyber crimes.
As network security has become integral part of our life
and botnets have become the most serious threat to it
It is very important to detect botnet attack and find the
solution for it