Peer to Peer Botnets
Description
"Peer-to-peer botnets could become more common if coordinated attacks on conventional botnets continue. "When they feel that centralized botnets have more of a tendency to be shut down by the authorities, then they will turn to peer-to-peer botnets," says Cliff Zou, a network security researcher at the University of Central Florida.
A botnet is a network of computers that, unknown to their owners, have been compromised by viruses or worms and can be controlled remotely. Spammers and criminal organizations use them to troll for credit card and bank account information.
Some botnets already implemented have used peer-to-peer communications. Computers in such a network keep a list of peers—other computers in the network—and pass information on to them. When the controller wants to issue a command to the botnet, he inserts it into one or more of the peers, and it gradually spreads throughout the network." (http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37443/)
More Information
- Botnets move P2P as centrally controlled zombie networks come under fire, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-botnets-p2p-centrally-zombie-networks.html