A “bot” is a compromised machine used to attack another application or system. Left on their own, bots can migrate through a network and cause slowdowns, breakdowns, and other unintended consequences. Bots are used to scrape data, break into user accounts, and disrupt systems. Many types of DDoS attacks are performed by armies of bots made up of compromised connected devices. Poor security used on these devices make it easy to compromise and use them to overload an application/website with high volume traffic.