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A master's thesis from Aalborg University
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Bad Service: Towards detection of malicious web servers using a client-side honeypot

Term

4. semester

Publication year

2024

Submitted on

Abstract

The rise of malicious web servers poses significant cyber security threats. This thesis presents MaiBee, a client-side honeypot in the form of a browser extension designed to detect and analyse suspicious advertisements. The primary objective is to enhance the detection of malicious activities through filtering techniques and suspicion scoring based on multi-criteria. MaiBee employs various functionalities, including ad detection, filtering, DNS lookup and reverse lookup, analysis of IP characteristics and reports of external sources such as AbuseIPDB and VirusTotal, to scrutinise potentially harmful web elements. By conducting an experiment with the honeypot on 10,000 sites, this thesis demonstrates MaiBee’s effectiveness in identifying suspicious ads and its detection capabilities. The findings offer valuable insights into the nature of malicious advertisements and contribute to a deeper understanding of current cyber threats.