"A botnet infection can lead to the monitoring of a consumer's personal information and communication, and exploitation of that consumer's computing power and Internet access. Networks of these compromised computers are often used to disseminate spam, to store and transfer illegal content, and to attack the servers of government and private entities with massive, distributed denial of service attacks," the notice said.

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, explains how companies would get participate in the code.

This story is part of Federal News Radio's daily Cybersecurity Update. For more cybersecurity news, click here.