3 Ways to Prioritize Fighting Botnets

The Internet is infested with threats of all kinds, some of the most annoying are bots. These consist of systems which potentially gather information from a variety of sources. While primarily used by search engines to gather data from websites (these are the good kinds), there are others who may have fallen into the hands of hackers which steal information or send spam.

When bots become infected with malware, they then continue to spread the infection to other systems. This creates more bots, and these systems band together to form a botnet. Furthermore, these bots can mask their presence and slink into your system disguised as ordinary Internet traffic. They can then proceed to collect information for spamming purposes, steal your website’s data, or even execute Distributed Denial of Service attacks, grinding any forward movement on a server to a halt.

Whatever the case, infected bots should not be taken lightly. Every business owner needs be aware of the damage bots can potentially do to your technical infrastructure. Thankfully, there are well-known industry standards which you can integrate to protect yourself from these threats.

Prevention
Ideally, you want to prevent botnets from even becoming an issue. This means taking measures to prevent bots from infecting your systems, like an antivirus solution. However, software which eliminates threats after they’ve entered the network isn’t an end-all fix for your botnet issues. To this end, it’s ideal to integrate a comprehensive security tool, like Computerware’s Unified Threat Management (UTM). Included is a strong firewall, powerful antivirus, web content filtering, and spam blocking solutions, all designed to keep your business safe from the crafty likes of hackers and their botnets.

Identification
Preventative measures only help you against threats that are still outside your system. You must also be prepared to deal with bots which have already made it inside your network. If they’ve made it through, you probably have compromised systems on your hands. You must take measures to identify unusual traffic patterns, which may give away which systems have been compromised. Computerware has a solution for this, too. We call it our remote monitoring tool, which allows us to view your network’s traffic patterns and discern abnormalities.

Remediation
Now that you know which systems are infected, you need to go about cleaning them of any malware or malicious entities. First, you should physically remove the system from the network to prevent the spread to other systems. While you can try to scrub the computer of infections completely, there may be programs which are unable to be uninstalled. In this case, you’ll probably have to restore the system from the last clean backup you took.

When it comes to botnets, you can never be too careful. Computerware can provide you with the tools and resources necessary to prevent, identify, and fix issues pertaining to bots. Give Computerware a call at (703) 821-8200 to arm your business against these dangerous threats.