BOTNETS: Future Outlook

This does not necessarily mean that the threat level will stay the same until some new botnet technology will arrive. On the contrary, new threats built on the same technology get released on a daily basis. At the moment, there are many tools available to the average user to visually create customized bots using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Basically, anyone can create its own bots, and then find an efficient method of infecting as many systems as possible.

It is extremely likely that innovation will come as a result of the direct competition between botmasters, rather than because of the need for extra protection from the user or authorities. The future evolution of botnets will include further updates to the already existing bots, in order to increase their ability to spread, rally and control. This way, the botmaster will be able to hide better from both the users and the authorities, and at the same time, to control larger numbers of zombie computers.

Also, bot programmers struggle to make their creations more adaptable. For instance, a major online banking service that had been hit by multiple DDoS attacks saw that the aggressors could modify the attack in real time in order to stay one step ahead the protection mechanisms that had been activated.

Talking about new technologies, the next generation of bots will likely ditch the IRC and P2P approaches in favor of the more accessible HTTP and SSL protocols, which are present on almost every server on earth.

- Anatomy of a Botnet