Botnets and the cyber crime industry

- [Instructor] By it's very nature, … cybercrime lends itself to automation. … The malware writers in the cybercrime business ecosystem … are now some of the most proficient software writers … in the world, but to make serious money from cybercrime … requires automation to carry out attacks at scale. … In the early days of computers viruses propagated … through floppy disks. … As the internet grew, infections started to appear … in file downloads. … And as floppy drives phased out, USB drives took their place … as a vector for infection. … Compromised websites began to host malware … and take advantage of browser weaknesses to infect visitors. … As the impact of viruses moved from nuisance value … to financial gain, so did automation of the crime. … By automating and taking advantage … of the growing popularity of email … and the sheer size of the internet, … organized crime was able to achieve cybercrime … at a scale which has now eclipsed elicit drug dealing. … Cybercrime scales by what's known as a botnet. …