Building a Better Botnet

Two days after actor Heath Ledger died, e-mails began moving across the Internet purportedly carrying a link to a detailed police report divulging “the real reason” behind the actor’s death. Ledger had been summarily drafted into the service of a botnet. Bots are compromised computers controlled by profit-minded crooks. Those e-mails were spread by a network of thousands of bots, called a “botnet.” Anyone who clicked on the link got instantly absorbed into the fast-spreading Mega-D botnet, says security firm Marshal.