6. Phishing

• Botnets also provide hosting for Web sites involved in phishing attacks

• When a known Web server is compromised, everybody on the Internet is reporting it as a phishing sites:

  • compromised Web servers don't last very long.

• Instead, Bot herders find a reliable bot client (your PC!) and host the Phishing web site on compromised machine.

• Other use for bot hosting - drug selling websites.

• As soon as the website is identified (i.e. automatically by a smarter browser), the botnet adapts and changes to another bot in the botnet.

• New Web servers start on infected computers to aid in phishing attacks