What is Botnet Monitoring? A Comprehensive Guide
Botnet monitoring is an important aspect of cybersecurity. It has grown in importance because the number of attacks leveraging botnets has increased dramatically over the last few years. This blog post will explain what botnet monitoring is, how it works, and why it’s so important to your business.
What is Botnet Monitoring?
Botnet monitoring is the process of detecting and remediating bots that have been compromised or infected with malware on your network. Botnets are groups of computers that have been compromised without the owner knowing about it, and they can be used to perform a wide range of malicious activities such as DDoS attacks. There are also botnets which can be used to mine cryptocurrency, click on advertisements for revenue, and other nefarious purposes.
How Does Botnet Monitoring Work?
Botnet monitoring allows you to find out if your business has been attacked by unauthorized users connecting to your company’s web servers through unsecured protocols like Telnet, SSH or FTP using weak passwords. This type of attack is referred to as an ‘insecure direct object reference’ attack because it exploits security flaws in the way applications interact with database structures known as Object References. The botnet monitoring software will monitor for this activity, and notify you of unauthorized users attempting to access your web servers. The software will also track the number of devices on your network.
Botnets are also used to launch DDoS attacks against websites and servers. These types of attacks can cost a company tens or even hundreds of thousands dollars in lost revenue due to website downtime, and they’re increasing at an alarming rate . Botnet monitoring allows you to perform real-time analysis on your network activity by tracking bandwidth usage , DNS requests, open ports, source IP addresses and more.
Types of Botnets
While botnets are made up of devices like routers, servers and webcams which have been compromised through malware or weak passwords, there are two main types:
- Command-and-control (C&C) Botnets
These include zombie computers on the botnet that receive instructions from a C&C server. Attackers can use this type of botnet to launch DDoS attacks against websites by flooding them with traffic. Other common activities for this type of botnet include mining cryptocurrency without the owner’s knowledge/consent, click fraud etc.. Large scale illegal cyber activity has caused law enforcement agencies to take notice in recent years , resulting in successful takedowns carried out by Europol .
- DNS Botnets
A DNS botnet is an updated version of a C&C botnet. Instead of using the public-facing IP address to communicate with devices, this type of botnet uses domains that are registered via Dynamic Domain Name System (DDNS). If your business doesn’t allow you to register DDNS records for some reason, it will not be able to detect these types of bots on your network . This makes it harder to identify and mitigate them compared to traditional C&C servers.
What Are the Benefits of Botnet Monitoring?
The benefits of botnet monitoring are numerous. First, it increases your organization’s security posture by detecting and remediating bots that have been compromised on the network or servers which could lead to a loss in revenue due to their activities like click fraud for example. It also helps you comply with industry regulations such as GDPR, PCI DSS etc., if they apply to you.
Other Benefits Include:
- Enabling active cyber hygiene
- Implementing web application firewall (WAF) rules based on monitored traffic patterns
- Identifying infected devices before an attack occurs
- Detecting suspicious server activity quickly allowing for faster remediation times
- Reducing false positives from non-malicious behavior (e.g., antivirus software)
- Minimizing the time to detect and respond to an attack
What Are Some Popular Botnet Monitoring Tools?
Some of the most popular botnet monitoring tools include:
- Tripwire Enterprise – Monitors for insecure direct object references on all web servers, databases and network devices. It also monitors file integrity to determine if there are any unauthorized changes or exfiltration attempts taking place that weren’t authorized with a change management process. Tripwire customers have achieved 100% detection rates using this product .
- 360 Netlab – Offers full visibility into your entire IT infrastructure including both physical and virtual infrastructures as well as public cloud services like AWS/Azure etc.. You can automatically generate comprehensive maps showing how bots are connected to each other which makes it easy to identify compromised devices quickly . The dashboard is designed in such a way that it makes the data easily accessible for security analysts, network administrators and even non-technical staff.
- NetFlow Analysis – Is a great way to keep track of your bandwidth utilization as well as identify unusual patterns in traffic flow by correlating events from different parts of the infrastructure together. This helps you understand how attackers are moving laterally across your environment . You can also use Netflow for capacity planning purposes which will help reduce downtime due to undercapacity issues down the road .
- Arbor Networks Peakflow SP – A comprehensive solution designed specifically with service providers and large enterprises in mind where scalability is key. Arbor’s product line offers full visibility into botnet activity over time so if one device on the network starts acting suspiciously, you can look back in time to see if this is a new behavior or not. The product also offers the ability for IT staff to quickly identify sources of malicious activity which allows them to take action before any damage is done .
