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Botnets 'make innocent PCs send malware'

Botnets mean that an innocent user's computer could be being used by a criminal to perform online crime, an expert has explained.

Davey Winder, a staff writer at the IT discussion community DaniWeb, stated that some people do not understand that a botnet can be launching attacks from their machine without their consent or even knowledge.

Botnets "launch distributed denial of service attacks, send spam, distribute malware and above all else make the criminal gangs that control them lots and lots of money", he continued.

A botnet is a collection of computers which have been infected with malware, hacked and being controlled by a distant criminal in order to generate an income, usually through illegal online activity.

Individual machines which are being operated in this way are known as bots or zombies and the network of compromised computers is often called a zombie network.

One of the most infamous such botnets is the Storm worm botnet.

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