Malware Bots

Like any program, a bot can be used for good or for evil. "Evil" web crawlers scan web pages for email addresses,
instant messaging handles and other identifying information that can be used for spamming purposes. Crawlers can also engage in
click fraud, or the process of visiting an advertising link for the purpose of driving up a pay-per-click advertiser's cost. Spambots send
hundreds of unsolicited emails and instant messages per second. Malware bots can even be programmed to play games and collect prizes from some websites.


Malware is type of bot which allows an attacker to gain complete control over

the affected computer.Computers that are infected with a 'bot' are generally referred to as 'zombies'.
There are literally tens of thousands of computers on the Internet which are infected with some type of 'bot' and don't even realize it.
Attackers are able to access and activate them to help execute DoS attacks against web sites, host phishing attack Web sites or send out thousands of spam email messages. Should anyone trace the attack back to its source, they will find an unwitting victim rather than the true attacker.
A dos can say as denial of service. malware bots that are used for injecting viruses or malware in websites, or scanning them looking for security vulnerabilities to exploit are most dangerous.
It’s no surprise that blogs and ecommerce sites that become target of these practices end up being hacked and injected with porn or Viagra links. All these undesirable bots tend to look for information that is normally off limits and in most situations, they completely disregard robots.txt commands.

Dectecting infection

The flood of communications in and out of your PC helps antimalware apps detect a known bot. "Sadly, the lack of antivirus alerts isn't an
indicator of a clean PC," says Nazario. "Antivirus software simply can't keep up with the number of threats. It's frustrating [that] we don't
have significantly better solutions for the average home user, more widely deployed."Even if your PC antivirus check comes out
clean, be vigilant. Microsoft provides a free Malicious Software Removal Tool. One version of the tool, available from both Microsoft
Update and Windows Update, is updated monthly; it runs in the background on the second Tuesday of each month and reports to Microsoft whenever it finds and removes an infection.

Reference
Amber Viescas, What are web bots[online], Retrieved in 25 july, 2001
URL:
http://www.ehow.com/info_8783848_bots.htmlg

Tony Bradley, What is a bot?[online]
URL:
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/frequentlyaskedquestions/qt/pr_bot.htm

Augusto Ellacuriaga, Practical Solutions for blocking spa, bot and scrapers, Retrieved in 25 june,2008
URL:

http://www.spanishseo.org/block-spam-bots-scrapers