Botnet Detection and Countermeasures- A Survey

Abstract: The increase of incidents and threats against information security has turned out to be very serious problem in this digital era. Among the various threats Botnets are the emerging threats against cyber security. Botnets are collections of compromised computers (Bots) which are remotely controlled by its originator (BotMaster) under a common Command-and-Control (C&C) infrastructure. They are the key vehicles for several Internet attacks, such as spam, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), identity theft, malware dissemination and phishing. This paper is a survey of recent advances in botnet detection research. The survey classifies Botnet detection techniques into two approaches. One approach is based on setting up Honeynets and another approach is based on Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The paper also presents various countermeasures to the botnet threats and proposes future directions for botnet detection research.