Researchers At Ben Gurion University Uncover “Zombie Army” Behind Cyber Attacks

January 29, 2016 | Researchers from Deutsche Telekom Innovation Labs at Ben Gurion University have discovered and traced six botnets by analyzing data collected from past cyber-attacks. Known as a zombie army, a botnet is a network of computers that have been remotely programmed, unbeknownst to their users, to forward transmissions, including spam or viruses, to other computers connected to the internet. Cyberattacks using botnets were largely untraceable until a team led by Profs. Bracha Shapira and Lior Rokach analyzed data captured by a “honeypot” (or decoy) network run by Deutsche Telekom. By analyzing the data, the team built a breakthrough program that identifies the botnet by finding similar attack patterns. Dudu Mimran, CTO of Deutsche Telekom Innovation Labs@BGU said, “In addition to the aforementioned findings, there were other interesting achievements. For example, the ability to identify whether the attack emanated from a real person or from a robot, as well as the ability to predict future attacks. This is the first time such a comprehensive study has been carried out and returned with unique findings.”