In this study, we advance the understanding of botmaster-owned systems in an advanced botnet, Waledac, through the analysis of file-system and network trace data from the upper-tiers in its architecture. The functionality and existence of these systems has to-date only been postulated as existing knowledge has generally been limited to behavioral observations from hosts infected by bot binaries...

Botnets pose a major problem to Internet security. They can cause various online crimes such as DDoS attacks, identity thefts and spam e-mails. While there have been many attempts to detect botnets, most of these studies have difficulties in detecting botnets due to their evasive techniques to resemble normal traffic. In this paper, we propose a visualization method, BotXrayer, to detect botnet...

Cyber-criminals can distribute malware to control computers on a networked system and leverage these compromised computers to perform their malicious activities inside the network. Botnet-detection mechanisms, based on a detailed analysis of network traffic characteristics, provide a basis for defense against botnet attacks. We formulate the botnet defense problem as a zero-sum Stackelberg secu...

Botnets are now the key platform for many Internet attacks, such as spam, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), identity theft, and phishing. Most of the current botnet detection approaches work only on specific botnet command and control (C&C) protocols (e.g., IRC) and structures (e.g., centralized), and can become ineffective as botnets change their C&C techniques. In this paper, we present a...

BotNet is a type of malware that has posed serious threats to Internet community and has been a common weapon for committing cybercrimes such as spam generation, stealing sensitive information, click fraud and DDOS attacks. In this document, we propose an approach for BotNet detection at large scale where network traffic is monitored at a central core in the Internet (say a Tier-1 ISP) so that ...

Botnets, i.e., networks of compromised machines under a common control infrastructure, are commonly controlled by an attacker with the help of a central server: all compromised machines connect to the central server and wait for commands. However, the first botnets that use peer-to-peer (P2P) networks for remote control of the compromised machines appeared in the wild recently. In this paper, w...

Unlike other types of malware, botnets are characterized by their command and control (C&C) channels, through which a central authority, the botmaster, may use the infected computer to carry out malicious activities. Given the damage botnets are capable of causing, detection and mitigation of botnet threats are imperative. In this paper, we present a host-based method for detecting and differen...

Botnets are security threat now days, since they tend to perform serious internet attacks in vast area through the compromised group of infected machines. The presence of command and control mechanism in botnet structure makes them stronger than traditional attacks. Over course of the time botnet developer have switched to more advanced mechanism to evade each of which new detection methods and...

The usefulness ofemail has been tempered by its role in the widespread distribution ofspam and malicious content. Security solutions have .focused on filtering out malicious payloads and weblinksfrom email; the potential dangers of email go past these boundaries: harmless-looking emails can carry dangerous, hidden botnet content. In this paper, we evaluate the suitability ofemail communicationf...

Black hat search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns attract and monetize traffic using abusive schemes. Using a combination of Web site compromise, keyword stuffing and cloaking, a SEO botnet operator can manipulate search engine rankings for key search terms, ultimately directing users to sites promoting some kind of scam (e.g., fake antivirus). In this paper, we infiltrate an influential SEO...