JISAR

Abstract: This paper details Mirai botnet capabilities, technical components, and original research in realistic hardening measures for protecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Mirai, and its various strains embody the consummate actions of nefarious, wide-spreading botnets capable of proliferating to hundreds of thousands of potentially vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices to act as a delivery mechanism for a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack towards one or more service providing Internet applications. The authors present both a hardening and prevention script, executed on the actual device, to protect devices from becoming malicious bots, as part of the Mirai botnet. In a controlled test environment, the hardening script was shown to be successful in preventing the initial Mirai infection on the device and the detection script was successful in recognizing and stopping an already existing infection on the Mirai bot. The conclusion describes possible research directions.

Keywords: botnet, DDoS, detection, IoT, malware, Mirai

Download this article: JISAR - V11 N2 Page 33.pdf

Recommended Citation: Frank, C., Nance, C., Jarocki, S., Pauli, W. E. (2018). Protecting IoT from Mirai botnets; IoT device hardening. Journal of Information Systems Applied Research, 11(2) pp 33-44. http://jisar.org/2018-11/ ISSN: 1946-1836. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of CONISAR 2017)