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A Hybrid Covert Channel with Feedback over Mobile Networks

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Security and Privacy in Social Networks and Big Data (SocialSec 2019)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1095))

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Abstract

In the existing network covert channel research, the transmission of secret messages is one-way, lacking confirmation feedback on whether the secret message is successfully accepted. However, VoLTE has real-time interactive features, and the data packets between the sender and the receiver are transmitted in both directions, which facilitates the construction of a two-way covert channel with feedback. Therefore, we propose a hybrid covert channel over mobile networks, which includes a sender-to-receiver covert timing channel that modulates covert message through actively dropping packets during the silence periods and a reverse covert storage channel that hides the acceptance of the covert message as feedback information into the feedback control information field of the RTCP packet. The sender evaluates the current attack severity according to the feedback and adjusts the real-time parameters of the covert timing channel to weigh the robustness and other performance. Experimental results show that this solution can effectively feedback the transmission of the covert message while keeping undetectable and robust.

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Acknowledgment

This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant No. U1636213 and No. 61876019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tangshan University, Tangshan, 063000, China

    Xiaosong Zhang & Linhong Guo

  2. School of Computer Science, Beijing Institute of Technology University, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yuan Xue, Hongwei Jiang, Lu Liu & Quanxin Zhang

Authors
  1. Xiaosong Zhang
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  2. Linhong Guo
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  3. Yuan Xue
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  4. Hongwei Jiang
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  5. Lu Liu
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  6. Quanxin Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Quanxin Zhang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Weizhi Meng

  2. University of Plymouth, Devon, UK

    Steven Furnell

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Zhang, X., Guo, L., Xue, Y., Jiang, H., Liu, L., Zhang, Q. (2019). A Hybrid Covert Channel with Feedback over Mobile Networks. In: Meng, W., Furnell, S. (eds) Security and Privacy in Social Networks and Big Data. SocialSec 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1095. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0758-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0758-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-0757-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-0758-8

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