Building a dynamic reputation system for DNS
USENIX Security'10 Proceedings of the 19th USENIX conference on Security
Understanding the prevalence and use of alternative plans in malware with network games
Proceedings of the 27th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference
SoK: P2PWNED - Modeling and Evaluating the Resilience of Peer-to-Peer Botnets
SP '13 Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
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Devices infected with malicious software typically form botnet armies under the influence of one or more command and control (C&C) servers. The botnet problem reached such levels where federal law enforcement agencies have to step in and take actions against botnets by disrupting (or "taking down") their C&Cs, and thus their illicit operations. Lately, more and more private companies have started to independently take action against botnet armies, primarily focusing on their DNS-based C&Cs. While well-intentioned, their C&C takedown methodology is in most cases ad-hoc, and limited by the breadth of knowledge available around the malware that facilitates the botnet. With this paper, we aim to bring order, measure, and reason to the botnet takedown problem. We propose a takedown analysis and recommendation system, called rza, that allows researchers to perform two tasks: 1) a postmortem analysis of past botnet takedowns, and 2) provide recommendations on how to successfully execute future botnet takedowns. As part of our system evaluation, we perform a postmortem analysis of the recent Kelihos, Zeus and 3322.org takedowns. We show that while some of these takedowns were effective, others did not appear to have a significant long-term impact on the targeted botnet. In addition to the postmortem analysis, we provide takedown recommendation metrics for 45 currently active botnets, where we find that 42 of them can likely be disabled entirely by using a DNS-based takedown strategy only.