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Insight into Contemporary Dissemination Techniques of Mobile Botnet Clients (Bots)

Authors:
Milan Oulehla
David Malanik

Keywords: Android permission analysis; bot (client of botnet); bot dissemination, C&C server; Google Play; mobile botnet

Abstract:
Currently, smartphones and tablets offer a wide range of functionalities, such as Web browsing, social networking, as well as using banking applications. This has resulted in s constant increase in popularity of mobile devices connected to the Internet 24/7. In the 2nd quarter of 2015, the Android operating system has dominated the market with an 82.8% share, which makes it the most widespread mobile operating system in the world. However, this popularity is double-edged, including both users and botnet creators. The research papers “Android Botnets on the Rise: Trends and Characteristics and How Can Botnets Cause Storms?” as well as “Understanding the Evolution and Impact of Mobile Botnets” imply urgent need for additional research into this field. Therefore, the research described by this article includes not only a theoretical study into the ways of delivering the botnet command and essential botnet knowledge based on published research, but also provides a practical investigation into the ways of infecting smartphones and tablets with botnet clients (bots). Special tools have been developed for performing certain malicious actions enabling real testing of safety mechanisms of the Google Play. These tools have also been used in combination with other useful techniques such as social engineering and deceitful actions trying to get users to unintentional cooperation. Finally, some challenging results and security vulnerabilities have been raised by the research.

Pages: 117 to 123

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: July 24, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2162-2116

ISBN: 978-1-61208-493-0

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from July 24, 2016 to July 28, 2016