BOT Protection

Short for "Robot" a bot is a program that is designed to automate tasks. Initially bots were used in the UNIX world to automate dull tasks that system administrators frequently perform. Some bots will automatically chat with a user, simulating a human response to questions. Bots can also be used maliciously to allow a remote attacker to control a victims PC. The nature of many bots is such that it is as easy to control one PC as one hundred thousand PCs. Bots can be used to send spam, download and store illegal files, such as some types of porn, or to make computers participate in attacks on other computers. A bot can be made to search the victim's hard drive and send confidential information to a remote site on the internet in order to perform identity theft. Computers that are infected with bots are often called drones or zombies.