Skip to main content
USENIX
  • Conferences
  • Students
Sign in
  • Home
  • Attend
    • Venue, Hotel, and Travel
    • Students and Grants
    • Co-Located Workshops
  • Program
    • At a Glance
    • Technical Sessions
    • Poster Session
  • Activities
    • Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions
    • Poster Session
    • WiPs
  • Participate
    • Call for Papers
      • Important Dates
      • Symposium Organizers
      • Symposium Topics
      • Refereed Papers
      • Shadow PC
      • Symposium Activities
      • Submitting Papers
    • Instructions for Participants
  • Sponsorship
  • About
    • Symposium Organizers
    • Services
    • Questions
    • Help Promote!
    • Past Symposia
  • Home
  • Attend
    • Venue, Hotel, and Travel
    • Students and Grants
    • Co-Located Workshops
  • Program
  • Activities
  • Participate
    • Call for Papers
    • Instructions for Participants
  • Sponsorship
  • About
    • Symposium Organizers
    • Services
    • Questions
    • Help Promote!
    • Past Symposia

sponsors

Platinum Sponsor
Gold Sponsor
Gold Sponsor
Silver Sponsor
Silver Sponsor
Silver Sponsor
Bronze Sponsor
Bronze Sponsor
General Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Media Sponsor
Industry Partner
Industry Partner

help promote

USENIX Security '16 button

Get more
Help Promote graphics!

connect with usenix


  •  Twitter
  •  Facebook
  •  LinkedIn
  •  Google+
  •  YouTube

twitter

Tweets by USENIXSecurity

usenix conference policies

  • Event Code of Conduct
  • Conference Network Policy
  • Statement on Environmental Responsibility Policy

You are here

Home » Post-Mortem of a Zombie: Conficker Cleanup After Six Years
Tweet

connect with us

Post-Mortem of a Zombie: Conficker Cleanup After Six Years

Authors: 

Hadi Asghari, Michael Ciere, and Michel J.G. van Eeten, Delft University of Technology

Abstract: 

Research on botnet mitigation has focused predominantly on methods to technically disrupt the commandand- control infrastructure. Much less is known about the effectiveness of large-scale efforts to clean up infected machines. We analyze longitudinal data from the sinkhole of Conficker, one the largest botnets ever seen, to assess the impact of what has been emerging as a best practice: national anti-botnet initiatives that support largescale cleanup of end user machines. It has been six years since the Conficker botnet was sinkholed. The attackers have abandoned it. Still, nearly a million machines remain infected. Conficker provides us with a unique opportunity to estimate cleanup rates, because there are relatively few interfering factors at work. This paper is the first to propose a systematic approach to transform noisy sinkhole data into comparative infection metrics and normalized estimates of cleanup rates. We compare the growth, peak, and decay of Conficker across countries. We find that institutional differences, such as ICT development or unlicensed software use, explain much of the variance, while the national anti-botnet centers have had no visible impact. Cleanup seems even slower than the replacement of machines running Windows XP. In general, the infected users appear outside the reach of current remediation practices. Some ISPs may have judged the neutralized botnet an insufficient threat to merit remediation. These machines can however be magnets for other threats — we find an overlap between GameoverZeus and Conficker infections. We conclude by reflecting on what this means for the future of botnet mitigation.

Hadi Asghari, Delft University of Technology

Michael Ciere, Delft University of Technology

Michel J.G. van Eeten, Delft University of Technology

Open Access Media

USENIX is committed to Open Access to the research presented at our events. Papers and proceedings are freely available to everyone once the event begins. Any video, audio, and/or slides that are posted after the event are also free and open to everyone. Support USENIX and our commitment to Open Access.

BibTeX
@inproceedings {190882,
author = {Hadi Asghari and Michael Ciere and Michel J.G. van Eeten},
title = {{Post-Mortem} of a Zombie: Conficker Cleanup After Six Years},
booktitle = {24th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 15)},
year = {2015},
isbn = {978-1-939133-11-3},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
pages = {1--16},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity15/technical-sessions/presentation/asghari},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug,
}
Download
Asghari PDF

Presentation Video 

Presentation Audio

MP3 Download

Download Audio

  • Log in or    Register to post comments

Open access to the USENIX Security '15 videos sponsored by Symantec.

Platinum Sponsors

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Bronze Sponsors

General Sponsors

Media Sponsors & Industry Partners

Open Access Publishing Partner

© USENIX

  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us