Affiliation:
1. University of Reading, UK
Abstract
It is undeniable that technology is developing and growing at an unstoppable pace. Technology has become a part of people's daily lives. It has been used for many purposes but mainly to make human life easier. In addition to being useful, these advancements in technology have some bad consequences. A new malware called botnet has recently emerged. It is considered to be one of the most important and dangerous cyber security problems as it is not well understood and evolves quickly. Communication of bots between each other and their botmaster results in the formation of botnet; this is also known as a zombie army. As botnets become popular among cybercriminals, more studies have been done in botnet detection area. Researchers have developed new detection mechanisms in order to understand and tackle this growing botnet issue. This chapter aims to review working principles of botnets and botnet detection mechanisms in order to increase general knowledge about botnets.