Apples, oranges and hosting providers: Heterogeneity and security in the hosting market

Hosting services are associated with various security threats, yet the market has barely been studied empirically. Most security research has relied on routing data and equates providers with Autonomous Systems, ignoring the complexity and heterogeneity of the market. To overcome these limitations,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tajalizadehkhoob, Samaneh, Korczynski, Maciej, Noroozian, Arman, Ganan, Carlos, van Eeten, Michel
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Autonomous
Business
Complexity theory
Education
Heterogeneity
Indication
IP (Internet Protocol)
IP networks
Markets
Networks
Organizations
Security
Sociology
Statistics
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Summary:Hosting services are associated with various security threats, yet the market has barely been studied empirically. Most security research has relied on routing data and equates providers with Autonomous Systems, ignoring the complexity and heterogeneity of the market. To overcome these limitations, we combined passive DNS data with WHOIS data to identify providers and some of their properties. We found 45,434 hosting providers, spread around a median address space size of 1,517 IP addresses. There is surprisingly little consolidation in the market, even though its services seem amenable to economies of scale. We applied cluster analysis on several measurable characteristics of providers. This uncovered a diverse set of business profiles and an indication of what fraction of the market fits each profile. The profiles are associated with significant differences in security performance, as measured by the uptime of phishing sites. This suggests the approach provides an effective way for security researchers to take the heterogeneity of the market into account.
ISSN:2374-9709
DOI:10.1109/NOMS.2016.7502824