Security: To Defeat a Malicious Botnet, Build a Friendly One

To Defeat a Malicious Botnet, Build a Friendly One
New Scientist (04/22/08) Inman, Mason

University of Washington computer scientists want to create swarms of good computers to neutralize hostile computers, which they say is an inexpensive way to handle botnets of any size. Current botnet countermeasures are being overwhelmed by the growing size of botnets, the researchers say, but creating swarms of good computers could neutralize distributed denial-of-service attacks. The UW system, called Phalanx, uses its own large network of computers to shield the protected server. Instead of accessing the server directly, all information passes through the herd of "mailbox" computers. The good botnet computers only pass information when the server requests it, allowing the server to work at its own pace instead of being flooded by requests. Phalanx also requires computers requesting information from the server to solve a computational puzzle, which takes a small amount of time for a normal Web user but significantly slows down a zombie computer that sends numerous requests. The researchers simulated an attack by a million-computer botnet on a server protected by a network of 7,200 mailbox computers running Phalanx. Even when the majority of mailbox computers were under attack, the server was able to run normally.
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