Computers infected with a virus unknowingly become "zombies" in a botnet — which is a network used to send out spam and to mount further attacks on other machines. The zombie army can be controlled remotely, with the botnet creators usually trying to build the largest possible botnet of compromised computers to rent out to gangs for as little as $100 (£49) for a couple of hours.
But researchers at antivirus company F-Secure have reported seeing these large networks being broken down into smaller groups of compromised computers because the creation of large botnets is not creating as much revenue for such cybercriminals.
Mika Stahlberg, programme manager of the security response team at F-Secure, said the company is still seeing very big botnets around the world but coders are no longer trying to build as big a botnet as they can because that does not make any more money than a collection of smaller botnets.
The botnet bandits are also erring on the side of caution by steering away from larger botnets, because, if the central server controlling such a network goes down, then the whole of the botnet is lost, according to F-Secure.
Stahlberg added: "These people don't want to put all their eggs in one basket and are, therefore, running smaller botnets."
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This shouldn't be much of a shock to most security professionals...as this tend has been seen in other cybercrime groups in the past as well - Phishers, 419 Scammers, Virus Attacks, etc.You can could say that this is a known asymmetric warfare technique.
Why use a large grouped together army (that is an easier target), when the same mission can be achieved with smaller splinter groups (which are easier to hide and harder to target).
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