A Machine Learning Framework for Studying Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA)-Based Malware

Malware or threat actors use a Command and Control (C2) environment to proliferate and manage an attack. In a sophisticated attack, a threat actor often employs a Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) to cycle the network location in which malware communicates with C2. Network security controls such as blacklisting, implementing a DNS sinkhole, or inserting a firewall rule is a vital asset to an organization's security posture. However, all of them are typically ineffective against a DGA. In this paper, we propose a machine learning framework for identifying and clustering domain names to circumvent threats from a DGA. We collect a real-time threat intelligent feed over a six month period where all domains have threats on the public Internet at the time of collection. We then apply the proposed machine learning framework to study DGA-based malware. The proposed framework contains a two-level model, which consists of classification and clustering is used to first detect DGA domains and then identify the DGA of those domains. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed framework. To be precise, we achieve accuracies of 95.14% for the first-level classification and 92.45% for the second-level clustering, respectively.