 | By Mark Joseph Edwards Bots can wreak havoc on your network and endanger your data, but they’re not difficult to eradicate. A new tool tracks down bots, intercepts their communications, and produces reports that can aid you in removing them from your systems. |
Sniffing your network for bot-like activity
Bots are little programs that sit unobtrusively on your PC or network, just waiting to collect and transmit your personal information or perform some other nefarious act. There are now armies of these rogue applets; there’s a good chance your network has one, even if you have solid security tools and practices in place.
And even if your network is presently clean, a clever bot could slip by your defenses in the future.
One way to track these nuisances is to use BotHunter, a new free tool from SRI International that detects bot-related activity on computers within your network. The program monitors and correlates the bidirectional communication that typically takes place between a bot and the bot-network operators.
When it detects probable bot activity, BotHunter produces a report with information that helps you figure out where the bot is located on your network and what the bot is attempting to do. With that information in hand, you can then remove the bot and bolster the security of the affected systems.
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