Assessing the Attack Threat due to IRC Channels

• Published in: International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN'06) pp. 467 - 472
• Main Authors: Meyer, R., Cukier, M.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2006
• Subjects: Computational modeling; Data analysis; Educational institutions; Frequency; Humans; Information security; Mechanical engineering; Network servers; Protection; Protocols
• ISBN: 0769526071; 9780769526072
• ISSN: 1530-0889; 2158-3927
• DOI: 10.1109/DSN.2006.12

This practical experience report presents the results of an investigation into the threat of attacks associated with the chat medium IRC. A combination of simulated users (i.e., bots), some configured with scripts that simulated conversations, and regular users were used. The average number of attacks per day a user on IRC can expect, the effect of channel activity, gender based on the name, and network type on the number of attacks were determined. The social structure of IRC channels and the types of users that use it were analyzed. The results indicate that attacks through IRC channels come from human users selecting targets rather than automated scripts targeting every user in a channel