The report suggests bot-herders have developed new capabilities, allowing botnets to accommodate complex and organised attacks. Prolexic chief technology officer, Paul Sop, said; "Discovering the motive behind an attack is important in tracking down the perpetrators”
Prolexic specialise in the mitigation of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DdoS). The report showed that the most destructive botnets continue to be dedicated to DDoS attacks.
Although Prolexic tracks a large number command and control servers used to manipulate millions of bots, it is difficult for experts to locate the source of the attack and attribute the attacks to bot-herders. Sop commented; “At present, attacks are relatively untraceable – they can be launched from any location and the bot-herders work as anonymous mercenaries.”
The vast variety of different attack methods make it harder for botnets to be traced, which has lead to an increase in the number of sponsors willing to invest in developing new attacks. Sop said; “The sponsors feel they have much to gain and little to risk and from this tower of immunity, and they will continue to sponsor increasingly sophisticated ways to herd and deploy botnets."