Attacking with bitcoin: Using Bitcoin to Build Resilient Botnet Armies
Abstract
We focus on the problem of botnet orchestration and discuss how attackers can leverage decentralised technologies to dynamically control botnets with the goal of having botnets that are resilient against hostile takeovers. We cover critical elements of the Bitcoin blockchain and its usage for `floating command and control servers'. We further discuss how blockchain-based botnets can be built and include a detailed discussion of our implementation. We also showcase how specific Bitcoin APIs can be used in order to write extraneous data to the blockchain. Finally, while in this paper, we use Bitcoin to build our resilient botnet proof of concept, the threat is not limited to Bitcoin blockchain and can be generalized.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2004.01855,
title = {Attacking with bitcoin: Using Bitcoin to Build Resilient Botnet Armies},
author = {Dimitri Kamenski and Arash Shaghaghi and Matthew Warren and Salil S. Kanhere},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.01855},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
This is the 2nd version (improved based on reviewers feedback) of the accepted paper at 13th International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Security for Information Systems