Fast-Flux Bot Detection in Real Time

The fast-flux service network architecture has been widely adopted by bot herders to increase the productivity and extend the lifespan of botnets’ domain names. A fast-flux botnet is unique in that each of its domain names is normally mapped to different sets of IP addresses over time and legitimate users’ requests are handled by machines other than those contacted by users directly. Most existing methods for detecting fast-flux botnets rely on the former property. This approach is effective, but it requires a certain period of time, maybe a few days, before a conclusion can be drawn. In this paper, we propose a novel way to detect whether a web service is hosted by a fast-flux botnet in real time. The scheme is unique because it relies on certain intrinsic and invariant characteristics of fast-flux botnets, namely, 1) the request delegation model, 2) bots are not dedicated to malicious services, and 3) the hardware used by bots is normally inferior to that of dedicated serv...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: RAID
• Authors: Ching-Hsiang Hsu, Chun-Ying Huang, Kuan-Ta Chen
• Keywords: Computer Networks, Fast-flux Botnets, Most Existing Methods, RAID 2010, Request Delegation