Elsevier Computer Networks, Special Issue on Botnet Activity: Analysis, Detection and Shutdown, 2012 (Submission Due 1st December, 2011) http://www.elsevierscitech.com/dronsite/CFP_SIonBotnetActivity.pdf Guest Editors: Ronaldo Salles (Military Institute of Engineering, Brazil), Guofei Gu (Texas A&M University, USA), Thorsten Holz (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany), Morton Swimmer (Trend Micro Deutschland, Germany) Large scale attacks and criminal activities experienced in recent years have exposed the Internet to serious security breaches, and alarmed the world regarding cyber crime. In the center of this problem are the so called botnets -- collections of infected zombie machines (bots) controlled by the botmaster to perpetrate malicious activities and massive attacks. Some recent botnets are composed of millions of infected machines, making use of this attack vector inevitably harmfully. Hence, it is paramount to detect, analyze and shutdown such overlay networks before they become active. This special issue of Computer Networks is intended to foster the dissemination of high quality research in all aspects regarding botnet activity, detection and countermeasures. The objective of this special issue is to publish papers presenting detection algorithms, traffic monitoring and identification, protocols and architectures, as well as botnet modeling, behavior, simulation, statistics, dissemination, analysis, preventive procedures and possible countermeasures. Only technical papers describing previously unpublished, original, state-of-the-art research, and not currently under review by a conference or journal will be considered. We solicit papers in a variety of topics related to botnet research including, but not limited to: - Traffic Monitoring and Detection Algorithms - Data Collection, Statistics and Analysis - Modeling Behavior and Simulation - Protocols and Architectures (IRC, HTTP, P2P, etc) - Firewalls and IDS - Cyber Crime Case Studies - Reverse Engineering and Automated Analysis of Bots - Honeypots and Honeynets - New Platforms: Cellular and Wireless networks, Mobile devices, TV, etc. - Legal Issues and Countermeasures - Underground Markets, Vulnerability Markets and Zero-day Economics - Mini-Botnets For more information, please see http://www.elsevierscitech.com/dronsite/CFP_SIonBotnetActivity.pdf -----------------------