Sale and hire prices of botnets vary wildly.
Botnets are available for purchase on the dark web and shadow Telegram channels for as little as $100.
According to an analysis of botnet sales by Kaspersky, this year the lowest offers started at $99 and the highest reached $10,000. For hire, the price drops further when it comes to hiring, where prices range from $30 to $4,800 per month.
Also, the source code of a botnet can also be publicly released by malicious actors, with access to this leaked source code obtained for free or a fee of $10 to $50. Researchers said leaked botnets are generally considered an option for less sophisticated actors, as they are more likely to be detected by security solutions.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
