botnet

noun

bot·​net ˈbät-ˌnet How to pronounce botnet (audio)
: a network of computers that have been linked together by malware : a network of bots (see bot entry 1 sense 2b)
Criminals link hijacked personal computers together to form "botnets"—clusters of infected PCs that spammers can control from anywhere in the world.Dave Mosher

Examples of botnet in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Now an indictment of a group of Russian nationals and the takedown of their sprawling botnet offers the clearest example in years of how a single malware operation allegedly enabled hacking operations as varied as ransomware, wartime cyberattacks in Ukraine, and spying against foreign governments. Andy Greenberg, Wired News, 22 May 2025 There have been a lot of other alarming high-profile IoT botnet attacks recently. Chuck Brooks, Forbes.com, 18 May 2025 These botnets consist of computers and other devices, like IoT devices, that have been infected with malware, allowing an attacker to control them remotely. Hannah Parry, Newsweek, 10 Mar. 2025 In the case of Matrix, the DDoS campaign has combined a whole bunch of things to create a formidable botnet: public scripts, brute-force attacks as well as weak credentials exploitation. Davey Winder, Forbes, 27 Nov. 2024 See All Example Sentences for botnet

Word History

Etymology

bot entry 1 + net entry 1

First Known Use

2003, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of botnet was in 2003

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Cite this Entry

“Botnet.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/botnet. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.

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