Foundations of Botnet Threats

This unit surveys the historical evolution of the Internet and the layered web architecture to show how changes in technology and scale have enabled new types of automated abuse. Students study the proliferation, measurement, and unpredictability of botnets, the role of law enforcement, and common abuse scenarios (account takeover, account opening abuse, web scraping, scalping, carding) to prepare for defensive and investigative work in later units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the historical evolution of the Internet and contemporary platforms (from ARPANET to the metaverse) and classify how architectural and social changes have enabled new automated abuses.
• Map the different layers of the web (infrastructure, transport, application, and user-facing layers) to specific botnet tactics and identify vulnerabilities and threat vectors at each layer.
• Quantify botnet proliferation and bot traffic volumes by interpreting provided metrics and datasets, estimating prevalence and growth trends, and explaining sources of measurement uncertainty and unpredictability.
• Evaluate major bot-driven abuse scenarios—account takeover, account opening abuse, web scraping, scalping, and carding—assess law enforcement challenges, and prioritize defensive and investigative strategies to guide subsequent units.