Botnet Threats to E-Commerce Web Applications and Their Detection

Abstract

Security issues in e-commerce web applications are still exploratory, and in spite of an increase in e-commerce application research and development, lots of security challenges remain unanswered. Botnets are the most malicious threats to web applications, especially the e-commerce applications. Botnet is a network of BOTs. It executes automated scripts to launch different types of attack on web applications. Botnets are typically controlled by one or more hackers known as Bot masters and are exploited for different types of attacks including Dos (denial of service), DDos (distributed denial of service), phishing, spreading of malware, adware, Spyware, identity fraud, and logic bombs. The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize to what degree botnets can cause a threat to e-commerce security. In the first section, an adequate overview of botnets in the context of e-commerce security is presented in order to provide the reader with an understanding of the background for the remaining sections.