4,257 research outputs found
OnionBots: Subverting Privacy Infrastructure for Cyber Attacks
Over the last decade botnets survived by adopting a sequence of increasingly
sophisticated strategies to evade detection and take overs, and to monetize
their infrastructure. At the same time, the success of privacy infrastructures
such as Tor opened the door to illegal activities, including botnets,
ransomware, and a marketplace for drugs and contraband. We contend that the
next waves of botnets will extensively subvert privacy infrastructure and
cryptographic mechanisms. In this work we propose to preemptively investigate
the design and mitigation of such botnets. We first, introduce OnionBots, what
we believe will be the next generation of resilient, stealthy botnets.
OnionBots use privacy infrastructures for cyber attacks by completely
decoupling their operation from the infected host IP address and by carrying
traffic that does not leak information about its source, destination, and
nature. Such bots live symbiotically within the privacy infrastructures to
evade detection, measurement, scale estimation, observation, and in general all
IP-based current mitigation techniques. Furthermore, we show that with an
adequate self-healing network maintenance scheme, that is simple to implement,
OnionBots achieve a low diameter and a low degree and are robust to
partitioning under node deletions. We developed a mitigation technique, called
SOAP, that neutralizes the nodes of the basic OnionBots. We also outline and
discuss a set of techniques that can enable subsequent waves of Super
OnionBots. In light of the potential of such botnets, we believe that the
research community should proactively develop detection and mitigation methods
to thwart OnionBots, potentially making adjustments to privacy infrastructure.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
NEMESYS: Enhanced Network Security for Seamless Service Provisioning in the Smart Mobile Ecosystem
As a consequence of the growing popularity of smart mobile devices, mobile
malware is clearly on the rise, with attackers targeting valuable user
information and exploiting vulnerabilities of the mobile ecosystems. With the
emergence of large-scale mobile botnets, smartphones can also be used to launch
attacks on mobile networks. The NEMESYS project will develop novel security
technologies for seamless service provisioning in the smart mobile ecosystem,
and improve mobile network security through better understanding of the threat
landscape. NEMESYS will gather and analyze information about the nature of
cyber-attacks targeting mobile users and the mobile network so that appropriate
counter-measures can be taken. We will develop a data collection infrastructure
that incorporates virtualized mobile honeypots and a honeyclient, to gather,
detect and provide early warning of mobile attacks and better understand the
modus operandi of cyber-criminals that target mobile devices. By correlating
the extracted information with the known patterns of attacks from wireline
networks, we will reveal and identify trends in the way that cyber-criminals
launch attacks against mobile devices.Comment: Accepted for publication in Proceedings of the 28th International
Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (ISCIS'13); 9 pages; 1 figur
Adversarial behaviours knowledge area
The technological advancements witnessed by our society in recent decades have brought
improvements in our quality of life, but they have also created a number of opportunities for
attackers to cause harm. Before the Internet revolution, most crime and malicious activity
generally required a victim and a perpetrator to come into physical contact, and this limited
the reach that malicious parties had. Technology has removed the need for physical contact
to perform many types of crime, and now attackers can reach victims anywhere in the world, as long as they are connected to the Internet. This has revolutionised the characteristics of crime and warfare, allowing operations that would not have been possible before. In this document, we provide an overview of the malicious operations that are happening on the Internet today. We first provide a taxonomy of malicious activities based on the attacker’s motivations and capabilities, and then move on to the technological and human elements that adversaries require to run a successful operation. We then discuss a number of frameworks that have been proposed to model malicious operations. Since adversarial behaviours are not a purely technical topic, we draw from research in a number of fields (computer science, criminology, war studies). While doing this, we discuss how these frameworks can be used by researchers and practitioners to develop effective mitigations against malicious online operations.Published versio
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Evaluating the Provision of Botnet Defences using Translational Research Concepts.
Botnet research frequently draws on concepts from other fields. An example is the use of epidemiological models when studying botnet propagation, which facilitate an understanding of bot spread dynamics and the exploration of behavioural theory. Whilst the literature is rich with these models, it is lacking in work aimed at connecting the insights of theoretical research with day-to-day practice. To address this, we look at botnets through the lens of implementation science, a discipline from the field of translational research in health care, which is designed to evaluate the implementation process. In this paper, we explore key concepts of implementation science, and propose a framework-based approach to improve the provision of security measures to network entities. We demonstrate the approach using existing propagation models, and discuss the role of implementation science in malware defence
Command & Control: Understanding, Denying and Detecting - A review of malware C2 techniques, detection and defences
In this survey, we first briefly review the current state of cyber attacks,
highlighting significant recent changes in how and why such attacks are
performed. We then investigate the mechanics of malware command and control
(C2) establishment: we provide a comprehensive review of the techniques used by
attackers to set up such a channel and to hide its presence from the attacked
parties and the security tools they use. We then switch to the defensive side
of the problem, and review approaches that have been proposed for the detection
and disruption of C2 channels. We also map such techniques to widely-adopted
security controls, emphasizing gaps or limitations (and success stories) in
current best practices.Comment: Work commissioned by CPNI, available at c2report.org. 38 pages.
Listing abstract compressed from version appearing in repor
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