Design of a Hybrid Command and Control Mobile Botnet
ABSTRACT
The increasing popularity and improvement in capabilities offered by smartphones caught the attention of botnet developers. Now the threat of botnets is moving towards the mobile environment. This study presents the design of a hybrid command and control mobile botnet. The hybrid design explores the efficiency of multiple command and control channels against the following objectives: no single point of failure within the topology, low cost for command dissemination, limited network activities, and low battery consumption. The objectives are measured with a prototype that is deployed on a small collection of Android-based smartphones. The results indicate that current mobile technology exhibits all the capabilities needed to create a mobile botnet.
AUTHORS
Defence, Peace, Safety and Security Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
Pretoria, South Africa
Heloise Pieterse Is a MSc student in the department of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She is currently on a Studentship program at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and works within the Command, Control and Information Warfare research group. Research interests include information security and mobile devices.
Department of Computer Science University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, South Africa
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Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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