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.