Abstract:
Botnet, network of infected computers for carrying out malicious activities, have been active since 1999. Botnets have been evolving since then. Security companies and researchers have been trying to take down botnets, and whenever they succeed, a new and better version of that botnet comes up. These botnets have a weakness, its Command and control (C&C) infrastructure. If the C&C network is taken down, the whole botnet is compromised. Botmasters have been finding new techniques to strengthen their C&C but every method has a flaw. In our research, we will investigate previous techniques and find a novel option for C&C i.e., a technique in which taking C&C channel down is nearly impossible.
There is a lot of research going on about what botnets did but not much on what they might do in future. We will analyze current evolutions in botnets and identify a few platforms that botmasters may try to use in future. Our project will look at some of the platforms that could be exploited by botmasters in the near future. The platforms we aim to discover would be ones that have the potential to be used as a C&C server or are being used but haven’t been identified yet. We aim to highlight such platform so that appropriate countermeasure can be taken before a new botnet can cause havoc and result in loss of millions of dollars. DoD botnet proposes significant advantages over existing C&C techniques to resist the very monitoring practices currently used to contest botnets.
