Research Subject

["kevin fielder" <kevin.fielder () gmail com>]

Hi Devin

There are a raft of areas relating to botnets you could look into -

- Methods of gaining 'bots'
- Business models of botnets - e.g. how they are managed and rented out
- Growth of botnets / data around the munbers of machines currently
believed to be part of these networks
- Where botnets are managed from - e.g. analysis of the types and
locations of those that run the bot nets.

Other areas that may be of interest -
- phishing - both the technical aspects - e.g. creating fake sites,
poisoning dns records etc, and the social engineering side - getting
users to download and run trojans, visit the fake websites etc.

- root kits - use of, technical details around how they hide from the
O/S and detection tools.

- social engineering - from phishing to calling people to gaining
access to offices...

- end point security vs network security - e.g pros and cons of NIPS /
perimeter AV and anti spyware etc vs HIPS, and local AV / anti spyware
with conclusions of a requirement for one or the other or both...

As well as considering what interests you it will also be worth
considering the audience - how much technical detail will they want /
understand, and how interested are they in the non technical side of
security.

Hope this helps..

cheers

Kevin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: airlinedev () gmail com
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Date: 9 Feb 2007 15:38:39 -0000
Subject: Research Subject
Hello Readers,

I was looking for some insight from some of the readers of this
mailing list.  I am an undergraduate at the University of Central
Florida and would like to submit some journal articles to an
undergraduate research journal conducted here at the university.
However, I am curious as to what some of the readers may suggest that
I look into research wise.  Current research interests are: denial of
service, bot networks, the effects of bot networks on bandwidth
consumption, analysis of malware, vulnerabilities, etc.  Any
suggestions on a specific research topic that may seem interesting
would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advanced.

Sincerely,
Devin McLean (airlinedev [at] gmail [dot] com)