ZombieCoin: Powering Next-Generation Botnets with Bitcoin [chapter]

Syed Taha Ali, Patrick McCorry, Peter Hyun-Jeen Lee, Feng Hao
2015 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
Botnets are the preeminent source of online crime and arguably the greatest threat to the Internet infrastructure. In this paper, we present ZombieCoin, a botnet command-and-control (C&C) mechanism that runs on the Bitcoin network. ZombieCoin offers considerable advantages over existing C&C techniques, most notably the fact that Bitcoin is designed to resist the very regulatory processes currently used to combat botnets. We believe this is a desirable avenue botmasters may explore in the near
more » ... ture and our work is intended as a first step towards devising effective countermeasures. SCREENSHOT -< 5 > < webserver address > < number of screenshots > Tenant instructs bots to capture screenshots and upload them to a webserver DOWNLOAD DATA -< 4 > < number of transactions > Tenant instructs bots to download data the defined number of transactions LEASE -< 3 > < block height > < Tenant Bitcoin address > Botmaster rents botnet to a Tenant REGISTER -< 2 > < webserver address > Botmaster instructs bots to send registration messages to a webserver From Command To PING -< 1 > < website > < number of pings > Botmaster instructs bots to ping a website a certain number of times Tenant Botmaster Bots Botmaster Botmaster Tenant Tenant Bots Bots Bots Bots Fig. 3 . Sequence of commands in the experiment
doi:10.1007/978-3-662-48051-9_3 fatcat:oqxbppacnvgsnbw5onfrr32wpa