Botnet Defense and Privacy Trade-offs

This capstone unit guides students through analysis of real-world botnet incidents and the design, selection, and operationalization of defenses against bots and fraud. Students will weigh technology options and privacy implications—comparing CAPTCHAs, Private Access Tokens, and layered stacks—to produce actionable, compliant response plans.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze a botnet case study to identify attack vectors, tactics/techniques/procedures (TTPs), indicators of compromise, and measurable business impact
• Design a layered defense strategy that specifies a technology stack (e.g., WAF, rate limiting, device/browser signals, bot management, PATs) and justifies component selection based on threat model and operational constraints
• Evaluate response strategies and operational procedures by creating an incident response runbook and defining detection, mitigation, monitoring, and performance metrics for ongoing operationalization
• Demonstrate the ability to balance privacy and security by comparing CAPTCHA-based defenses with Private Access Token approaches and recommending privacy-preserving, standards-compliant deployment options