arXiv subjects

Wojciech Mazurczyk

Publications and source records attributed to Wojciech Mazurczyk.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Improving Hard Disk Contention-based Covert Channel in Cloud Computing Environment

Steganographic methods allow the covert exchange of secret data between parties aware of the procedure. The cloud computing environment is a new and hot target for steganographers, and currently not many solutions have been proposed. This paper proposes CloudSteg which is a steganographic method that allows the creation of a covert channel based on hard disk contention between the two cloud instances that reside on the same physical machine. Experimental results conducted using open source cloud environment OpenStack, show that CloudSteg is able to achieve a bandwidth of about 0.1 bps which is 1000 times higher than is known from the state-of-the-art version.

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arXiv2013

Development Trends in Steganography

Steganography is a general term referring to all methods for the embedding of additional secret content into some form of carrier, with the aim of concealment of the introduced alterations. The choice of the carrier is nearly unlimited, it may be an ancient piece of parchment, as well as a network protocol header. Inspired by biological phenomena, adopted by man in the ancient times, it has been developed over the ages. Present day steganographic methods are far more sophisticated than their ancient predecessors, but the main principles have remained unchanged. They typically rely on the utilization of digital media files or network protocols as a carrier, in which secret data is embedded. This paper presents the evolution of the hidden data carrier from the ancient times till the present day and pinpoints the observed development trends, with special emphasis on network steganography.

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arXiv2013

Understanding BitTorrent Through Real Measurements

In this paper the results of the BitTorrent measurement study are presented. Two sources of BitTorrent data were utilized: meta-data files that describe the content of resources shared by BitTorrent users and the logs of one of the currently most popular BitTorrent clients - μTorrent. μTorrent is founded upon a rather newly released UDP-based μTP protocol that is claimed to be more efficient than TCP-based clients. Experimental data have been collected for fifteen days from the popular torrent-discovery site thepiratebay.org (more than 30,000 torrents were captured and analyzed). During this period the activity and logs of an unmodified version of μTorrent client downloading sessions have been also captured. The obtained experimental results are swarm-oriented (not tracker-oriented as has been previously researched), which has allowed us to look at BitTorrent and its users from an exchanged resources perspective. Moreover, comparative analysis of the clients' connections with and without μTP protocol is carried out to verify to what extent μTP improves BitTorrent transmissions. To the authors' best knowledge, none of the previous studies have addressed these issues.

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arXiv2013

VoIP Steganography and Its Detection - A Survey

Steganography is an ancient art that encompasses various techniques of information hiding, the aim of which is to secret information into a carrier message. Steganographic methods are usually aimed at hiding the very existence of the communication. Due to the rise in popularity of IP telephony, together with the large volume of data and variety of protocols involved, it is currently attracting the attention of the research community as a perfect carrier for steganographic purposes. This paper is a survey of the existing VoIP steganography (steganophony) methods and their countermeasures.

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arXiv2013

StegTorrent: a Steganographic Method for the P2P File Sharing Service

The paper proposes StegTorrent a new network steganographic method for the popular P2P file transfer service-BitTorrent. It is based on modifying the order of data packets in the peer-peer data exchange protocol. Unlike other existing steganographic methods that modify the packets' order it does not require any synchronization. Experimental results acquired from prototype implementation proved that it provides high steganographic bandwidth of up to 270 b/s while introducing little transmission distortion and providing difficult detectability.

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arXiv2013

SkyDe: a Skype-based Steganographic Method

This paper introduces SkyDe (Skype Hide), a new steganographic method that utilizes Skype encrypted packets with silence to provide the means for clandestine communication. It is possible to reuse packets that do not carry voice signals for steganographic purposes because Skype does not use any silence suppression mechanism. The method's proof-of-concept implementation and first experimental results are presented. They prove that the method is feasible and offers steganographic bandwidth as high as 2.8 kbps.

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arXiv2012

Steganalysis of Transcoding Steganography

TranSteg (Trancoding Steganography) is a fairly new IP telephony steganographic method that functions by compressing overt (voice) data to make space for the steganogram by means of transcoding. It offers high steganographic bandwidth, retains good voice quality and is generally harder to detect than other existing VoIP steganographic methods. In TranSteg, after the steganogram reaches the receiver, the hidden information is extracted and the speech data is practically restored to what was originally sent. This is a huge advantage compared with other existing VoIP steganographic methods, where the hidden data can be extracted and removed but the original data cannot be restored because it was previously erased due to a hidden data insertion process. In this paper we address the issue of steganalysis of TranSteg. Various TranSteg scenarios and possibilities of warden(s) localization are analyzed with regards to the TranSteg detection. A steganalysis method based on MFCC (Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients) parameters and GMMs (Gaussian Mixture Models) was developed and tested for various overt/covert codec pairs in a single warden scenario with double transcoding. The proposed method allowed for efficient detection of some codec pairs (e.g., G.711/G.729), whilst some others remained more resistant to detection (e.g., iLBC/AMR).

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arXiv2012

Towards Steganography Detection Through Network Traffic Visualisation

The paper presents initial step toward new network anomaly detection method that is based on traffic visualisation. The key design principle of the proposed approach is the lack of direct, linear time dependencies for the created network traffic visualisations. The method's feasibility is demonstrated in network steganography environment by presenting steg-tomography methodology and developing the dedicated visualisation tool. To authors' best knowledge this is the first utilization of network traffic visualisations for steganalysis purposes.

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arXiv2012

Principles and Overview of Network Steganography

The paper presents basic principles of network steganography, which is a comparatively new research subject in the area of information hiding, followed by a concise overview and classification of network steganographic methods and techniques.

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arXiv2012

Multi-Level Steganography: Improving Hidden Communication in Networks

The paper presents Multi-Level Steganography (MLS), which defines a new concept for hidden communication in telecommunication networks. In MLS, at least two steganographic methods are utilised simultaneously, in such a way that one method (called the upper-level) serves as a carrier for the second one (called the lower-level). Such a relationship between two (or more) information hiding solutions has several potential benefits. The most important is that the lower-level method steganographic bandwidth can be utilised to make the steganogram unreadable even after the detection of the upper-level method: e.g., it can carry a cryptographic key that deciphers the steganogram carried by the upper-level one. It can also be used to provide the steganogram with integrity. Another important benefit is that the lower-layer method may be used as a signalling channel in which to exchange information that affects the way that the upper-level method functions, thus possibly making the steganographic communication harder to detect. The prototype of MLS for IP networks was also developed, and the experimental results are included in this paper.

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arXiv2012

Influence of Speech Codecs Selection on Transcoding Steganography

The typical approach to steganography is to compress the covert data in order to limit its size, which is reasonable in the context of a limited steganographic bandwidth. TranSteg (Trancoding Steganography) is a new IP telephony steganographic method that was recently proposed that offers high steganographic bandwidth while retaining good voice quality. In TranSteg, compression of the overt data is used to make space for the steganogram. In this paper we focus on analyzing the influence of the selection of speech codecs on hidden transmission performance, that is, which codecs would be the most advantageous ones for TranSteg. Therefore, by considering the codecs which are currently most popular for IP telephony we aim to find out which codecs should be chosen for transcoding to minimize the negative influence on voice quality while maximizing the obtained steganographic bandwidth.

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arXiv2011

Using Transcoding for Hidden Communication in IP Telephony

The paper presents a new steganographic method for IP telephony called TranSteg (Transcoding Steganography). Typically, in steganographic communication it is advised for covert data to be compressed in order to limit its size. In TranSteg it is the overt data that is compressed to make space for the steganogram. The main innovation of TranSteg is to, for a chosen voice stream, find a codec that will result in a similar voice quality but smaller voice payload size than the originally selected. Then, the voice stream is transcoded. At this step the original voice payload size is intentionally unaltered and the change of the codec is not indicated. Instead, after placing the transcoded voice payload, the remaining free space is filled with hidden data. TranSteg proof of concept implementation was designed and developed. The obtained experimental results are enclosed in this paper. They prove that the proposed method is feasible and offers a high steganographic bandwidth. TranSteg detection is difficult to perform when performing inspection in a single network localisation.

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arXiv2011

Sending Hidden Data via Google Suggest

Google Suggest is a service incorporated within Google Web Search which was created to help user find the right search phrase by proposing the autocompleting popular phrases while typing. The paper presents a new network steganography method called StegSuggest which utilizes suggestions generated by Google Suggest as a hidden data carrier. The detailed description of the method's idea is backed up with the analysis of the network traffic generated by the Google Suggest to prove its feasibility. The traffic analysis was also performed to discover the occurrence of two TCP options: Window Scale and Timestamp which StegSuggest uses to operate. Estimation of method steganographic bandwidth proves that it is possible to insert 100 bits of steganogram into every suggestions list sent by Google Suggest service.

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arXiv2011

How Hidden Can Be Even More Hidden?

The paper presents Deep Hiding Techniques (DHTs) that define general techniques that can be applied to every network steganography method to improve its undetectability and make steganogram extraction harder to perform. We define five groups of techniques that can make steganogram less susceptible to detection and extraction. For each of the presented group, examples of the usage are provided based on existing network steganography methods. To authors' best knowledge presented approach is the first attempt in the state of the art to systematically describe general solutions that can make steganographic communication more hidden and steganogram extraction harder to perform.

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arXiv2011

Lost Audio Packets Steganography: The First Practical Evaluation

This paper presents first experimental results for an IP telephony-based steganographic method called LACK (Lost Audio PaCKets steganography). This method utilizes the fact that in typical multimedia communication protocols like RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol), excessively delayed packets are not used for the reconstruction of transmitted data at the receiver, i.e. these packets are considered useless and discarded. The results presented in this paper were obtained basing on a functional LACK prototype and show the method's impact on the quality of voice transmission. Achievable steganographic bandwidth for the different IP telephony codecs is also calculated.

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arXiv2011

Is Cloud Computing Steganography-proof?

The paper focuses on characterisation of information hiding possibilities in Cloud Computing. After general introduction to cloud computing and its security we move to brief description of steganography. In particular we introduce classification of steganographic communication scenarios in cloud computing which is based on location of the steganograms receiver. These scenarios as well as the threats that steganographic methods can cause must be taken into account when designing secure cloud computing services.

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arXiv2011

Hiding Information in a Stream Control Transmission Protocol

The STCP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) is a candidate for a new transport layer protocol that may replace the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and the UDP (User Datagram Protocol) protocols in future IP networks. Currently, the SCTP is implemented in, or can be added to, many popular operating systems (Windows, BSD, Linux, HPUX or Sun Solaris). This paper identifies and presents all possible "places" where hidden information can be exchanged using an SCTP. The paper focuses mostly on proposing new steganographic methods that can be applied to an SCTP and that can utilise new, characteristic SCTP features, such as multi-homing and multi-streaming. Moreover, for each method, the countermeasure is covered. When used with malicious intent, a method may pose a threat to network security. Knowledge about potential SCTP steganographic methods may be used as a supplement to RFC5062, which describes security attacks in an SCTP protocol. Presented in this paper is a complete analysis of information hiding in an SCTP, and this analysis can be treated as a "guide" when developing steganalysis (detection) tools.

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arXiv2011

PadSteg: Introducing Inter-Protocol Steganography

Hiding information in network traffic may lead to leakage of confidential information. In this paper we introduce a new steganographic system: the PadSteg (Padding Steganography). To authors' best knowledge it is the first information hiding solution which represents inter-protocol steganography i.e. usage of relation between two or more protocols from the TCP/IP stack to enable secret communication. PadSteg utilizes ARP and TCP protocols together with an Etherleak vulnerability (improper Ethernet frame padding) to facilitate secret communication for hidden groups in LANs (Local Area Networks). Basing on real network traces we confirm that PadSteg is feasible in today's networks and we estimate what steganographic bandwidth is achievable while limiting the chance of disclosure. We also point at possible countermeasures against PadSteg.

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