Essentially, the TDSS botnet kad.dll module is more or less the same as cmd.dll in terms of control function. By running nodes.dat files containing a list of IP addresses of Kad clients in addition to ktzerlrules, which contains a command to download a new nodes.dat file from cybercriminal servers, the owners of the botnet can both include their infected computers in the publicly accessible Kad network and remove them from the network. The publicly accessible Kad network contains no more than 10 TDSS infected computers. This makes replacing the ktzerules file as inefficient as possible, which prevents other cybercriminals from taking control over the botnet. The total number of TDSS infected computers on the closed network number tens of thousands.