Botnets: Lifecycle, Attacks, Detection and Prevention Gupta Mriga M. Tech Student, Computer Science & Engineering, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College of Engineering and Technology, Ferozepur, Punjab, India Online published on 27 June, 2013. Abstract Botnets are arguably the biggest threat that the Internet community has faced. The prevalence of botnets, which is defined as a group of infected machines, have become the predominant factor among all the internet malicious attacks such as DDoS, Spam, and Click fraud. In this paper, a survey of botnets is provided. We first discuss fundamental concepts of botnets, including lifecycle, and two major kinds of topologies such as IRC based protocols and P2P based bots. Several related attacks, detection, tracing, and countermeasures, are then introduced, followed by possible future challenges. In order to better understand the challenges that the security community faces in order to dismantle botnets, we first need to understand how botnets function, and the many tools and techniques employed by them. The major objective of this paper is to exploit open issues in botnet detection and preventive measures through exhaustive analysis of botnets features and existing researches. Top Keywords Bot, Botmaster, Honeypot, IRC-based botnets, P2P botnets, Honeynets. Top |