Skip to main content
Article
Social Networking for Botnet Command and Control
International Journal of Computer Network and Information Security (IJCNIS) (2013)
  • Ashutosh Singh, San Jose State University
  • Annie H. Toderici, San Jose State University
  • Kevin Ross, San Jose State University
  • Mark Stamp, San Jose State University
Abstract

A botnet is a group of compromised computers—often a large group—under the command and control of a malicious botmaster. Botnets can be used for a wide variety of malicious attacks, including spamming, distributed denial of service, and identity theft. Botnets are generally recognized as a serious threat on the Internet. This paper discusses SocialNetworkingBot, a botnet we have developed that uses Twitter for command and control. In SocialNetworkingBot, the botmaster tweets commands that are acted on by the individual bots. We discuss the functionality and implementation of SocialNetworkingBot, as well as a small-scale experiment that we have conducted. The botnet presented here is intended to serve as a proof of concept and a platform to facilitate further research.

Keywords
  • Botnet,
  • Twitter,
  • Malware,
  • Social networking
Publication Date
2013
Publisher Statement
SJSU users: use the following link to login and access the article via SJSU databases
Citation Information
Ashutosh Singh, Annie H. Toderici, Kevin Ross and Mark Stamp. "Social Networking for Botnet Command and Control" International Journal of Computer Network and Information Security (IJCNIS) Vol. 5 Iss. 6 (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mark_stamp/13/