CONNECTION: COvert chaNnel NEtwork attaCk Through bIt-rate mOdulatioN

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Soderi, Simone, De Nicola, Rocco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Soderi, Simone
De Nicola, Rocco
author_facet Soderi, Simone
De Nicola, Rocco
contents Covert channel networks are a well-known method for circumventing the security measures organizations put in place to protect their networks from adversarial attacks. This paper introduces a novel method based on bit-rate modulation for implementing covert channels between devices connected over a wide area network. This attack can be exploited to exfiltrate sensitive information from a machine (i.e., covert sender) and stealthily transfer it to a covert receiver while evading network security measures and detection systems. We explain how to implement this threat, focusing specifically on covert channel networks and their potential security risks to network information transmission. The proposed method leverages bit-rate modulation, where a high bit rate represents a '1' and a low bit rate represents a '0', enabling covert communication. We analyze the key metrics associated with covert channels, including robustness in the presence of legitimate traffic and other interference, bit-rate capacity, and bit error rate. Experiments demonstrate the good performance of this attack, which achieved 5 bps with excellent robustness and a channel capacity of up to 0.9239 bps/Hz under different noise sources. Therefore, we show that bit-rate modulation effectively violates network security and compromises sensitive data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_15858
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CONNECTION: COvert chaNnel NEtwork attaCk Through bIt-rate mOdulatioN
Soderi, Simone
De Nicola, Rocco
Cryptography and Security
Information Theory
Networking and Internet Architecture
Covert channel networks are a well-known method for circumventing the security measures organizations put in place to protect their networks from adversarial attacks. This paper introduces a novel method based on bit-rate modulation for implementing covert channels between devices connected over a wide area network. This attack can be exploited to exfiltrate sensitive information from a machine (i.e., covert sender) and stealthily transfer it to a covert receiver while evading network security measures and detection systems. We explain how to implement this threat, focusing specifically on covert channel networks and their potential security risks to network information transmission. The proposed method leverages bit-rate modulation, where a high bit rate represents a '1' and a low bit rate represents a '0', enabling covert communication. We analyze the key metrics associated with covert channels, including robustness in the presence of legitimate traffic and other interference, bit-rate capacity, and bit error rate. Experiments demonstrate the good performance of this attack, which achieved 5 bps with excellent robustness and a channel capacity of up to 0.9239 bps/Hz under different noise sources. Therefore, we show that bit-rate modulation effectively violates network security and compromises sensitive data.
title CONNECTION: COvert chaNnel NEtwork attaCk Through bIt-rate mOdulatioN
topic Cryptography and Security
Information Theory
Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.15858