Encrypted and Covert DNS Queries for Botnets: Challenges and Countermeasures

TL;DR

This paper explores how malware uses encrypted and covert DNS queries to evade detection, discusses the challenges this poses to network security, and proposes traffic analysis methods as countermeasures.

Contribution

It highlights the limitations of current detection techniques against encrypted and covert DNS traffic and suggests new mitigation strategies based on traffic analysis.

Findings

Malware can effectively hide DNS queries using encryption and covert channels.

Traditional DNS monitoring is insufficient against encrypted and covert traffic.

Traffic analysis can help detect hidden DNS communications.

Abstract

There is a continuous increase in the sophistication that modern malware exercise in order to bypass the deployed security mechanisms. A typical approach to evade the identification and potential takedown of a botnet command and control server is domain fluxing through the use of Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs). These algorithms produce a vast amount of domain names that the infected device tries to communicate with to find the C&C server, yet only a small fragment of them is actually registered. This allows the botmaster to pivot the control and make the work of seizing the botnet control rather difficult. Current state of the art and practice considers that the DNS queries performed by a compromised device are transparent to the network administrator and therefore can be monitored, analysed, and blocked. In this work, we showcase that the latter is a strong assumption as malware could efficiently hide its DNS queries using covert and/or encrypted channels bypassing the detection mechanisms. To this end, we discuss possible mitigation measures based on traffic analysis to address the new challenges that arise f