Folks,

I'm teaching an Introduction to Computer Security class and would love
to find what others have done in creating lab exercises for building and
managing a simple botnet in order to make it more "real" for my
students. Any pointers to references would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

//ted
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 T E D   M A R K O W I T Z
 Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science (ECECS)
 252 Buckman Hall
 Tagliatela School of Engineering
 University of New Haven
 West Haven, CT 06516

 WWW: http://www.unh-ececs.net
 e-mail: tmarkowitz@newhaven.edu
 office/fax: 1-203-655-2400
 mobile: 1-203-984-6565
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Excellent points and I warn my students about such things all semester. On the other hand, I don't think there's a better way to learn to protect yourself than knowing exactly how attackers go about hurting you.

Actually I was planning on doing precisely as you suggest: off-line, well-insulated, using throw-away VM's as targets, etc. I'm just looking for some example code to use as a headstart vs. beginning completely from scratch.

Cheers,

//ted

Hi Ted, Just to reinforce what was mentioned before but with the strongest point that you should MAKE students very aware of: 5 years + $250,000.

I suggest using a packet builder that will allow you to use a test script that will have them understand what takes place.

Example free builder: Engage Packet builder - Scriptable libnet-based packet builder

Student Charged with Using University Computer Network for Denial of Service Attacks and to Control Other Computers (via “BotNet” zombies)
Steven

http://www.cybercrime.gov/frostPlea.pdf

http://www.cybercrime.gov/smithPlea2.pdf

http://www.cybercrime.gov/anchetaSent.htm

http://www.cybercrime.gov/maxwellPlea.htm

Hope this helps as I teach many of the CEH classes

Here is a great video link posted in one of the other posts:

Botnets using twitter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_F3VheC9ww

And Don posted this as well:

http://www.scmagazineus.com/tool-lets-twitter-be-used-to-control-botnet/article/170236/

Gee thanks Ted now I am going to be spending the day on Bot Nets