Foundations of Botnet Threats

This unit surveys the historical and technical context for modern botnet activity, from ARPANET to contemporary web architectures, and introduces how changes in the web’s layers enable new automated abuses. Students learn to identify and quantify common bot-driven attacks (account takeover, account opening abuse, web scraping, scalping, carding), understand bot traffic patterns and unpredictability, and consider law enforcement and ethical constraints to prepare for hands-on detection and response in later units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the historical evolution and layered architecture of the internet by mapping key milestones from ARPANET to the metaverse and explaining how structural changes create opportunities for botnet activity
• Evaluate and categorize common automated abuses (account takeover, account opening abuse, web scraping, scalping, carding) by describing typical attack vectors, indicators, and business impacts
• Apply basic quantitative techniques to estimate bot traffic volume and variability by interpreting sample logs or datasets and calculating metrics such as bot-to-human ratios and session rates
• Demonstrate understanding of legal, ethical, and law-enforcement challenges related to bot activity by summarizing investigative limitations and proposing initial organizational priorities for mitigation and escalation