Botnet detection based on traffic behavior analysis and flow intervals

Botnets represent one of the most serious cybersecurity threats faced by organizations today. Botnets have been used as the main vector in carrying many cyber crimes reported in the recent news. While a significant amount of research has been accomplished on botnet analysis and detection, several challenges remain unaddressed, such as the ability to design detectors which can cope with new forms of botnets. In this paper, we propose a new approach to detect botnet activity based on traffic behavior analysis by classifying network traffic behavior using machine learning. Traffic behavior analysis methods do not depend on the packets payload, which means that they can work with encrypted network communication protocols. Network traffic information can usually be easily retrieved from various network devices without affecting significantly network performance or service availability. We study the feasibility of detecting botnet activity without having seen a complete network flow by classifying behavior based on time intervals. Using existing datasets, we show experimentally that it is possible to identify the presence of existing and unknown botnets activity with high accuracy even with very small time windows. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.