Automated Botnet Detection Method Based on Two-Stage Graph Learning

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1671-1122.2024.12.011

Abstract

Abstract:

Botnets had become one of the most serious threats to network infrastructure. Existing botnet detection methods heavily rely on feature engineering, which significantly limits their detection performance in real-world environments. Botnet detection methods based on raw traffic had more advantages in this aspect, especially when leveraging graphs and raw traffic to enhance the identification of abnormal botnet behaviors, which is the focus of this study. This paper proposed an automated botnet detection method based on two-stage graph learning called Graph2BotNet. The approach involved constructing a flow graph from the interaction packets of each bidirectional network flow and building a communication graph based on the communication topology between IPs. The graph isomorphism network model was used to learn the vector representation of the flow graph, embedding the vector representation into the corresponding communication graph nodes, and finally passing it into the second stage-graph neural networks model to classify the nodes. Graph2BotNet leveraged the graph structure to automatically extract flow graph features and, without requiring extensive expert features, combined graph neural network models to perform two-stage graph learning for fast and accurate botnet detection. The experimental results on the ISCX-2014, CTU-13, and CICIDS2017 botnet datasets demonstrate that Graph2BotNet outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods.

Key words: Botnet detection, deep learning, graph neural networks, network traffic analysis, botnet topology

CLC Number:

TP309

ZHANG Xuan, WAN Liang, LUO Heng, YANG Yang. Automated Botnet Detection Method Based on Two-Stage Graph Learning[J]. Netinfo Security, 2024, 24(12): 1933-1947.

Figures/Tables 13

References 29

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僵尸网络	类型	训练集	测试集
Neris	IRC	√	√
Rbot	IRC	√	√
Menti	IRC	×	√
Sogou	HTTP	×	√
Murlo	IRC	×	√
Virut	HTTP	√	√
NSIS	P2P	√	√
Zeus	P2P	√	√
SMTP Spam	P2P	√	√
UDP Storm	P2P	×	√
Tbot	IRC	×	√
Zero Access	P2P	×	√
Weasel	P2P	×	√
Smoke Bot	P2P	×	√
Zeus Control (C&C)	P2P	√	√
ISCX IRC bot	P2P	×	√

序号	持续时间/hrs	数据包/个	网络流/条	数据大小/GB	僵尸网络
1	6.15	71971482	2824637	52.0	Neris
2	4.21	71851300	1808123	60.0	Neris
3	66.85	167730395	4710639	121.0	Rbot
4	4.21	62089135	1121077	53.0	Rbot
5	11.63	4481167	129833	37.6	Virut
6	2.18	38764357	558920	30.0	Menti
7	0.38	7467139	114078	5.8	Sogou
8	19.50	155207799	2954231	123.0	Murlo
9	5.18	115415321	2753885	94.0	Neris
10	4.75	90389782	1309792	73.0	Rbot
11	0.26	6337202	107252	5.2	Rbot
12	1.21	13212268	325472	8.3	NSIS.ay
13	16.36	50888256	1925150	34.0	Virut

数据集	场景	僵尸网络样本/个	正常样本/个
ISCX-2014数据集	训练集	35476	120897
ISCX-2014数据集	测试集	49517	77475
CTU-13数据集	1,2,9	45379	45000
	3,4,10,11	34965	31000
	5,13	31403	34706
	6	15258	17000
	7	18568	19000
	8	32467	33000
	12	25349	27000
CICIDS2017数据集	—	96365	182065

参数	GIN	SSG
优化器	Adam	Adam
训练轮数/轮	20	20
批次大小/个	64	64
激活函数	ReLU	ReLU
丢弃率	0.5%	—

数据集	方法	准确率	召回率	精确率	F1分数
ISCX-2014 数据集	No-Flowgraph	95.90%	92.93%	98.20%	95.49%
	No-Commgraph	91.14%	94.05%	96.10%	95.06%
	本文方法	99.88%	99.76%	99.88%	99.72%
场景1,2,9（CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	92.66%	96.30%	94.70%	95.49%
	No-Commgraph	96.28%	97.03%	98.44%	97.73%
	本文方法	98.81%	99.26%	98.82%	99.04%
场景3,4,10,11（CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	92.45%	92.11%	94.21%	93.15%
	No-Commgraph	95.58%	98.38%	91.55%	94.84%
	本文方法	98.62%	97.10%	96.63%	96.87%
场景5,13 （CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	81.00%	81.12%	79.68%	80.40%
	No-Commgraph	85.56%	89.18%	87.33%	88.24%
	本文方法	91.97%	93.66%	91.63%	92.64%
场景6 （CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	77.44%	76.50%	86.08%	81.01%
	No-Commgraph	78.94%	86.25%	85.41%	85.83%
	本文方法	89.13%	89.70%	88.65%	89.17%
场景7 （CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	92.40%	94.44%	94.17%	94.31%
	No-Commgraph	95.44%	96.59%	94.36%	95.46%
	本文方法	97.65%	98.27%	97.77%	98.02%
场景8 （CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	91.47%	97.53%	92.58%	94.99%
	No-Commgraph	96.42%	96.01%	97.14%	96.57%
	本文方法	97.77%	98.00%	97.39%	97.70%
场景12 （CTU-13）	No-Flowgraph	79.38%	76.48%	80.03%	78.22%
	No-Commgraph	86.30%	80.94%	83.53%	86.30%
	本文方法	92.90%	95.82%	92.77%	94.27%
CICIDS2017 数据集	No-Flowgraph	97.77%	98.00%	97.39%	97.70%
	No-Commgraph	99.48%	98.80%	99.66%	99.21%
	本文方法	99.59%	98.87%	99.92%	99.38%