Breaking botnets: A quantitative analysis of individual, technical, isolationist, and multilateral approaches to cybersecurity

Abstract

Abstract Malicious networks of botnets continue to grow in strength as millions of new users and devices connect to the internet each day, many becoming unsuspectingly complicit in cyber-attacks or unwitting accomplices to cybercrimes. Both states and nonstate actors use botnets to surreptitiously control the combined computing power of infected devices to engage in espionage, hacking, and to carry out distributed denial of service attacks to disable internet-connected targets from businesses and banks to power grids and electronic voting systems. Although cybersecurity professionals have established a variety of best practices to fight botnets, many important questions remain concerning why levels of botnet infections differ sharply from country to country, as relatively little empirical testing has been done to establish which policies and approaches to cybersecurity are actually the most effective. Using newly available time-series data on botnets, this article outlines and tests the conventionally held beliefs and cybersecurity strategies at every level—individual, technical, isolationist, and multilateral. This study finds that wealthier countries are more vulnerable than less wealthy countries; that technical solutions, including patching software, preventing spoofing, and securing servers, consistently outperform attempts to educate citizens about cybersecurity; and that countries which favor digital isolation and restrictions on internet freedom are not actually better protected than those who embrace digital freedom and multilateral approaches to cybersecurity. This latter finding is of particular importance as China’s attempts to fundamentally reshape the internet via the “Digital Silk Road” component of the Belt and Road Initiative will actually end up making both China and the world less secure. Due to the interconnected nature of threats in cyberspace, states should instead embrace multilateral, technical solutions to better govern this global common and increase cybersecurity around the world.