Abstract
This paper proposes a new kind of cyber-security system, named Botnet Defense System (BDS), which defends an Internet of Things (IoT) system against malicious botnets. The concept of BDS is “Fight fire with fire”. The distinguishing feature is that it uses white-hat botnets to fight malicious botnets. A BDS consists of four components: Monitor, Strategy Planner, Launcher, and Command and Control (C&C) server. The Monitor component watches over a target IoT system. If the component detects a malicious botnet, the Strategy Planner component makes a strategy against the botnet. Based on the planned strategy, the Launcher component sends white-hat worms into the IoT system and constructs a white-hat botnet. The C&C server component commands and controls the white-hat botnet to exterminate the malicious botnet. Strategy studies are essential to produce intended results. We proposed three basic strategies to launch white-hat worms: All-Out, Few-Elite, and Environment-Adaptive. We evaluated BDS and the proposed strategies through the simulation of agent-oriented Petri net model representing the battle between Mirai botnets and the white-hat botnets. This result shows that the Environment-Adaptive strategy is the best and reduced the number of needed white-hat worms to 38.5% almost without changing the extermination rate for Mirai bots.
Highlights
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fundamental technology which brings about radical change in modern society, while being targeted as a springboard for cyber-attacks
We propose a new kind of cyber-security system, named Botnet Defense System (BDS)
We propose a cyber-security system, named Botnet Defense System (BDS), that defends IoT systems against malicious botnets
Summary
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fundamental technology which brings about radical change in modern society, while being targeted as a springboard for cyber-attacks. This is because they do not have resources to run security functions and their vendors may sacrifice security in the price competition and/or their rush to market. Yamaguchi [7] has proposed to use worms to defend IoT systems by imitating the way that attackers use malware to attack. He defined a white-hat worm as a worm which drives out malicious botnets and deletes itself. BDS strategically operates the white-hat worm and its botnet in response to Mirai’s infection situation.
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