Using Simulation to Characterize Topology of Peer to Peer Botnets

Abstract

Future network intruders are constantly changing, improving and extending the capabilities of their botnets. Peer to peer bots are now under widespread development and are quickly evolving into a much tougher species to kill. However, partly due to the lack of understanding of the structural potential of command and control mechanism a botnets can have, countering peer to peer botnets has been ineffective. In this paper, we explore the characteristic of communication networks created by peer to peer botnets. We propose a simulation approach to characterize the structural properties and robustness of P2P botnets, corresponding to different paradigms of forming botnets. Through calculation and simulation for topology construction procedures, we show that extremely resilient peer to peer botnets can be formed to deliver attack code quickly. Such a theory would help predict botnets containment for a given topology and help develop strategies to improve defense against P2P botnets, because applying those strategies can always translate into some network topology transformation.