Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking

Botnets, which are networks formed by malware-compromised machines, have become a serious threat to the Internet. Such networks have been created to conduct large-scale illegal activities, even jeopardizing the operation of private and public services ...

Botnets, overlay networks built by cyber criminals from numerous compromised network-accessible devices, have become a pressing security concern in the Internet world. Availability of accurate mathematical models of population size evolution enables ...

Malware is one of the main threats to the Internet security in general, and to commercial transactions in particular. However, given the high level of sophistication reached by malware (e.g. usage of encrypted payload and obfuscation techniques), ...

Botnet malware is improving with the latest (3rd) generation exemplified by the SpyEye and Zeus botnets. These botnets are important to understand because they target online financial transactions, primarily with banks. In this paper, we analyze the ...

Understanding the command-and-control (C&C) protocol used by a botnet is crucial for anticipating its repertoire of nefarious activity. However, the C&C protocols of botnets, similar to many other application layer protocols, are undocumented. Automatic ...

We present CoCoSpot, a novel approach to recognize botnet command and control channels solely based on traffic analysis features, namely carrier protocol distinction, message length sequences and encoding differences. Thus, CoCoSpot can deal with ...

A large number of today's botnets leverage the HTTP protocol to communicate with their botmasters or perpetrate malicious activities. In this paper, we present a new scalable system for network-level behavioral clustering of HTTP-based malware that aims ...

A new DNS technique called Fast-Flux Service Network (FFSN) has been employed by bot herders to hide malicious activities and extend the lifetime of malicious root servers. Although various methods have been proposed for detecting FFSNs, these ...

Botnet is one of the most notorious threats to Internet users. Attackers intrude into a large group of computers, install remote-controllable software, and then ask the compromised computers to launch large-scale Internet attacks, including sending spam ...

Despite the large variety and wide adoption of different techniques to detect and filter unsolicited messages (spams), the total amount of such messages over the Internet remains very large. Some reports point out that around 80% of all emails are ...

In order to evade detection of ever-improving defense techniques, modern botnet masters are constantly looking for new communication platforms for delivering C&C (Command and Control) information. Attracting their attention is the emergence of online ...

Online Social Networks (OSNs) have attracted millions of active users and have become an integral part of today's web ecosystem. Unfortunately, in the wrong hands, OSNs can be used to harvest private user data, distribute malware, control botnets, ...

Many serious threats for PCs are spreading to the mobile environment. A mobile botnet, which is a collection of hijacked smartphones under the control of hackers, is one of them. With the quick development of the computing and communication abilities of ...