C&C techniques in botnet development

Abstract

Botnets are one of the most important threats towards nowadays users of the Internet. The joint of malware capabilities to be exploited in the network services and the increasing number of daily transactions performed in the cloud, makes them an attractive target for cybercriminals who have evolved their old IRC-based communication channels, into decentralized P2P networks, HTTP/S botnets and even Twitter-controlled networks. Against this background, this article analyses the threat that will affect computer networks in the upcoming years by going through these different Command & Control channels used by botmasters to keep the control of their hijacked networks. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.