...BOTNET What is Botnet? Botnets are malicious software that criminals distribute to computers and turn them into a zombie. When a computer is infected with a botnet your computer can perform tasks over the internet while you have no clue its happening. Normally criminals infect a large number of computers forming a network or a botnet. Botnets send out spam emails to spread viruses attack other computers and to commit other kind of crime and fraud. Some botnets can be large some can be small but size does not matter either way damage will be done regardless. Some of the most popular botnets are Conficker which never has activated to cause significant damage, but that don’t exactly means the threat is gone for it still remains very active. Another one is called Zeus. Zeus is a large botnet and has much detection mainly because individuals can configure it to use a different command. Zeus is mainly is configured to steal information such as banking credentials and send it to its attacker. Waledac works thru a peer-peer network and it can load malicious software, and proxy HTTP content to host malicious websites. Bredolab main focus is on downloading Scareware, fake anti-virus programs, and Ransonware. Their plan is to infect many computers with these programs and hope the victims purchase these programs and make some profit. Pushdo/Cutwail is two different botnets that use each other. Pushdo is a loader which means it downloads components to install on a system. It is customized...
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...Botnet’s The term bot is short for robot. Criminals distribute dangerous software known as malware that can turn your computer into a bot, also known as a zombie. When this happens your computer can perform automated tasks over the internet without you knowing it Criminals use bots to infect large numbers of computers. These infected computers form a network or a botnet. Which is a large number of infected computers Criminals use botnets to send out spam email messages, spread viruses, attack computers and servers, and commit other kinds of crime and fraud. Botnet is a good reason to have a very good viruses protection on your computer. If your computer become part of a botnet , it might slow down and you might be helping criminals Large company’s here in the US have security breach by bots. January 2014 Target announced 70 million individual’s contact information had been taken during a breach in December 2013 where 40 million customer’s credit card and debit card information was stolen. Neiman Marcus announced that between July and October of 2013, credit card information of 350.000 individual’s was stolen and 9,000 of the stolen credit card information was used. There is a long list of company’s big and small. These heartless criminals attacked the Goodwill Industries between February 2013 and August 2014 malware infected the chain store through infected third party vendors. As cyber attacks on retail, technology and industrial company’s increases...
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...Botnets are computer programs that are designed to take control of your computer without your knowledge. They are designed to infect computers and allow hackers to remotely control your computer via an Internet connection. Most users are unaware their computer has been hijacked because little evidence can be found that the computer is not working as expected. Once a computer has been compromised it is sometimes referred to as a bot or zombie. Having antivirus or other security software on your computer can help reduce the risk of being compromised by botnets but hackers are constantly developing new ways to circumvent these measures. Updating antivirus software regularly is one way to minimize the likelihood that computers can be used for malicious purposes (“What are Bots, Botnets and Zombies?” n.d.). The impact of botnets on business functions can be profound. Not only can computers be made to perform tasks without the users awareness but software like GameOver Zeus, or GOZ, can be used to steal financial or any other type of data from consumers or businesses. Business owners should be very concerned about programs like GOZ because they have sophisticated techniques to compromise other computers on a network, therefore an entire corporate network could be compromised if just one computer were to become infected with GOZ. Also, businesses should be concerned about botnets because they can be used to perform distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks using hundreds of thousands...
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...I would like to thank Richboy and Ete Akumagba for their guidance and for proof reading this report. I would like to thank my family for their support and love. ii Abstract This era of explosive usage of networks have seen the rise of several opportunities and possibilities in the IT sector. Unfortunately, cybercrime is also on the rise with several forms of attack including, but not limited to botnet attacks. A Botnet can simply be seen as a network of compromised set of systems that can be controlled by an attacker. These systems are able to take malicious actions as needed by the attacker without the consent of the device owner and can cause havoc. This paper is the first part of a two-part report and discusses on several reportedly known botnets and describes how they work and their mode of infection. Several historic attacks and the reported damage have been given to give a good picture and raise the bar on the capabilities of botnets. Several existing tools have been considered and examined which are useful for detecting and terminating botnets. You would find that each tool has its own detection strategy, which may have an advantage on some end than others. iii Table of Contents Declaration ........................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................
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...Classification of Botnet Detection Based on Botnet Architechture N.S.Raghava, Dept. of Information Technology Delhi Technological University Delhi, India nsraghava@dce.ac.in Divya Sahgal Dept of Information Technology Delhi Technological University Delhi, India divyasahgal61@gmail.com Seema Chandna Dept of Information Technology Delhi Technological University Delhi, India seemachandna64@gmail.com Abstract—Nowadays, Botnets pose a major threat to the security of online ecosystems and computing assets. A Botnet is a network of computers which are compromised under the influence of Bot (malware) code. This paper clarifies Botnet phenomenon and discusses Botnet mechanism, Botnet architecture and Botnet detection techniques. Botnet detection techniques can be categorized into six classes: honey pot based, signature-based, mining-based, anomaly-based, DNS-based and network-based. It provides a brief comparison of the above mentioned Botnet detection techniques. Finally, we discuss the importance of honeypot research to detect the infection vector and dealing with new Botnet approaches in the near future. Keywords- Botnet; Bot; Malware; Malicious code; P2P; Honeypot functions programmed by the Bot-master in automated way. Bots can receive commands from the Bot-master and work according to those commands to perform many cyber crimes for example phishing [26], malware dissemination, Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS) attack, identity theft etc. The process of Botnet can be...
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...Assurance Paper Outline Combatting and preventing botnets I would like to research on combatting and preventing botnets. I want to understand how botnets work, the techniques used to detect them and the measures to defend against them. I would also like to understand any loopholes in the existing methods of defending a system against a botnet. My final goal is to understand the existing measures to combat botnets and if there are any precautionary measures which can be taken to prevent a system from becoming part of a botnet. 1. Introduction: A botnet is a group of computers used by a hacker in order to launch an attack on a network. Botnets pose a great threat and combatting them is one of the biggest challenges being faced today. 2. An overview of botnets, how they work, types of botnets and detection techniques 1. The working of a botnet 2. Types of botnets i. Classification of botnets based on architecture ii. Classification of botnets based on the network protocols/technology. 3. Detection techniques for botnets i. Signature based detection ii. Anomaly based detection iii. DNS based detection 3. Prevention and mitigation of botnets 1. Various techniques used to defend a system against botnets 2. Preventive measures against botnets 4. Conclusion: In many cases, users’ systems become a part of botnets without their knowledge. By understanding how botnets work, how they can be detected, we may be able to take...
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...Web Server Application Attacks Brooks Gunn Professor Nyeanchi CIS 502 July 10, 2013 Web Server Application Attacks Many organizations have begun to use web applications instead of client/server or distributed applications. These applications has provided organizations with better network performance, lower cost of ownership, thinner clients, and a way for any user to access the application. We applications significantly reduce the number of software programs that must be installed and maintained in end user workstations (Gregory 2010). Web applications are becoming a primary target for cyber criminals and hackers. They have become major targets because of the enormous amounts of data being shared through these applications and they are so often used to manage valuable information. Some criminals simply just want vandalize and cause harm to operations. There are several different types of web application attacks. Directory traversal, buffer overflows, and SQL injections are three of the more common attacks. One of the most common attacks on web based applications is directory traversal. This attack’s main purpose is the have an application access a computer file that is not intended to be accessible. It is a form of HTTP exploit in which the hacker will use the software on a Web server to access data in a directory other than the server’s root directory. The hacker could possibly execute commands...
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...vulnerabilities in the browser security to modify web pages and manipulate monetary transactions by changing or adding details that are malicious. Form grabbing is a technique of capturing web form data in various browsers. Very recently Happy Hacker was arrested; he was alleged to be the mastermind behind the Zeus banking Trojan. Change slide * Zeus comes as a toolkit to build and administer a botnet. It has a control panel that is used to monitor and update patches to the botnet. * It also has a so-called builder tool that allows the creation of executables that are used to infect the user computers. * Zeus comes as a commercial product for users who can buy it from underground markets and easily setup their own botnet. It is estimated to cost around $700 plus for the advanced versions. Change Slide * Captures credentials over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, POP3 * Has an integrated SOCKS proxy * Steals/deletes HTTP and flash cookies * Captures screenshots and scrapes HTML from target sites * Modifies the local hosts file * Groups the infected user systems into different botnets to distribute command and control * Has search capabilities which may be used through a web form * The configuration file is encrypted * Has a major function to kill the operating system * Has a unique bot identification string Change Slide Zeus is estimated to account for some 44% of the banking malware infections and has impacted an estimated 3.6 million computers in...
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...their overall effects on the performance and running of the website. It will include the individual effects of each piece of hardware and what it does to help with the performance of the webpage. The effects of malicious entities like viruses and botnets and how they affect the server and its running. User side factors that influence web performance Viruses: If the user’s computer is infected with a virus it is able to reduce the speeds of the internet connection and can overload the processor so it works harder. This then has to calculate the information for the website and other task it has been forced upon by the virus causing loading times to increase. Each virus falls under a different category, each category does a different type of malicious activity. Trojan horse in computing terms is a non-self-replicating malware program that contains malicious coding. This program, when it is executed by the user will carry out various tasks that have been determined the Trojan’s nature. Trojan’s are typically used in a way such that the victim suffers from data loss, data theft, and even possibly damage to the system. Trojan’s can infect the victim’s computer for a various number of reasons. The virus is able to force the machine into a botnet system which is part of DDOS attack. Some attacks that can be unintended or used out of pure intent of being malicious is to crash the victims PC, corrupt data and even format storage disks. Key loggers are often used in Trojan form. Worms are...
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...Report#1 Denial of Service as a Service - Asymmetrical Warfare at Its Finest Introduction Denial of service attack becomes a major problem against computers connected to the Internet. DoS attacks involves exploiting any bugs in such an operating system or any existed vulnerabilities in TCP/IP implementation. Tracking this attack becomes very serious problem, because the attacker uses many machines in order to lunch this kind of attack. On the other hand, since the attackers are human being at least one mistake will occurred by them, once the investigators discover such mistake will be very helpful to track such attacker. The attacker goal is to prevent the legitimate users from accessing their resources by taking down such a server. This report will discuss “Denial of Service as a Service Asymmetrical Warfare at Its Finest” which was given by Robert Masse, CEO of Swipe Identity Company. Robert Masse has explained the process of capturing the attacker who performed Denial of server attack (DoS) against mid-sized internet server provider (ISP). Actually, the attacker was working at Mid-sized ISP, which is considered to be the largest ISP in Canada. In addition, the attacker was one of the employees who’s working at the targeted ISP, which make the investigation process very difficult to identify him or to stop this attack. On November 25th 2012 the ISP received this attack for one week and then eventually escalate quickly. As a result, this attack cause to shut down the emergency...
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...1 A .It is important for a company to understand the threat environment because company should be able to defend themselves and protect their assets from the threat environment and safe themselves from the attacks. 2 B. Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability 3 C. Compromises on successful attacks breaches are synonyms of incidents. 4 D. incident is a successful attack ie threat plus successful attempt. 5 E. Counter measures are the tools used to stop attacks. 6 F. Synonyms safeguards, protections and controls. 7 G. the goal of the counter measures safeguard protect and control company or firm’s assets. 8 H.The goal of the counter measure is to protect safeguard and control. 9 I. Types of Countermeasures preventive, detective and corrective. This assignment is part 1 of 3 of the Course Project. The assignment is to create the Project Synopsis/Overview Statement. Do note, this is a 'formal' document. It may contain the following: * The name of the Project * The Sponsor/Customer/Vendor/ . . . . (the major Stakeholders who would have benefited from the Project * The Scope of Work, Requirements etc. * Constraints such as Cost, Time, Quality etc. that have been imposed * Criteria to determine the success or failure of the Project * Any other details that are important to introduce the Project * Any other details that are of relevance to help plan and execute the Project * etc Having said that, here is a possible...
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...required for example, gaming bots and auction-site robots or less commonly in situations where the emulation of human activity is required, for example chat bots. Recently bots have been used for search advertising, such as Google AdSense. (Juusi, 2012) Internet bots are also commonly used in games such as RuneScape, despite the fact that it's not allowed. RuneScape has now known bots as illegal and you will receive a fine of $500-$2,500. Another, more malicious use of bots is the coordination and operation of an automated attack on networked computers, such as a denial-of-service attack by a botnet. Internet bots can also be used to commit click fraud and more recently have seen usage around MMORPG games as computer game bots. A spambot is an internet bot that attempts to spam large amounts of content on the Internet, usually adding advertising links. There are malicious bots and botnets of the following types: 1. Spambots that harvest email addresses from internet forums, contact forms or guestbook pages 2....
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...The Workings of Trojan Horse Viruses Name School In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for Class Professor Due Date Abstract Since the beginning of computer security one form of malware has always been a thorn in everyone’s side, it is one of the oldest and most commonly misunderstood malware and people hardly ever see it coming. It is the Trojan horse; a piece of programming code disguised as another program or file. This paper discusses how Trojans function, the damage Trojans cause and how Trojans can be prevented. The Workings of Trojan Horse Viruses What is a Trojan Horse Virus? Computer Trojans emerged in the mid-1980’s as a way to infect software and distribute the infected payload to different systems without raising suspicion. Trojans are not like viruses or worms per se, Trojans are malicious and cause damage but they are not self-replicating and don’t reproduce by infecting other files. Hackers have taken advantage of human nature with persuading the user to install a Trojan for the hacker by means of deception (Greenberg, 2011). Trojans Spread by users, the Trojan is latched onto an enticing program like a popular game, screen saver or any other program the user finds legitimate. Trojans usually open a covert backdoor into a targets computer or server, once installed the Trojan gives a hacker access to man operations including: Data theft, crashing the victim’s system, installing key loggers, and viewing the user’s screen (Greenberg...
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...Items covered are what type of software each of these malicious codes is categorized as. What a botnet and ransomware are and how they can affect a system. The type of threats that Gameover ZeuS and Cryptolocker are categorized as, such as a confidentiality breach, integrity breach or an availability breach. Lastly the types of intervention and prevention that can be done to mitigate an attack, or prevent it in the first place. Tackling software such as these before being spread can mean the difference between hundreds and even thousands of dollars in damage. Gameover ZeuS and Cryptolocker Gameover ZeuS was what most would consider a really nasty Trojan horse. Thought to be created by Evgeniy M. Bogachev, a 30 year old man from Russia, the supposed ring leader of the whole operation. It is thought that the Trojan infected between 500,000 and one million computers, and syphoning over 100 million dollars into the attackers accounts. Gameover ZeuS was a Trojan that created a botnet and also carried another payload with it, Cryptolocker. Cryptolocker was a type of ransomware that prompted users to enter personal information and money to “remove” the virus (Herman, n.d.). How did these two pieces of software work together to cause so much chaos? We have established that Gameover ZeuS is a botnet and Cryptolocker is a ransomware, but what exactly is a botnet and ransomware? A botnet is best described by Margaret Rouse (2012), “...a number of internet computer that, although their...
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...Linda Fernandez Chap 2 Review Questions 1. Why is information security a management problem? What can management do that technology cannot? Both management and IT management are responsible for the protection necessary to secure information. They are the ones who make the decisions regarding the appropriate security system and what level of security will work for the system. 2. Why is data the most important asset an organization possesses? What other assets in the organization require protection? Data is important because it keeps a record of all changes and activity. Without data, the company or organization may fail because they have no records, and therefore be of no good use. 3. Which management groups are responsible for implementing information security to protect the organizations’ ability to function? General Management and IT Management are responsible because it has to be set up for that specific system. If one part fails, then they are the ones to fix it and make it usable 4. Has the implementation of networking technology created more or less risk for businesses that use information technology? Why? Networking has caused more risk for businesses using information technology because it made it much easier for attackers to breach the security systems. They are even more of a target with the internet connection. 5. What is information extortion? Describe how such an attack can cause losses, using an example not found in the text. ...
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